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New Bottles 
The Naked Truth 

War Lines 

New and Old Songs 

Personal Privilege 

Facets of Truth 




LUKE NORTH 



19 17 
Los Angel es 
GOLDEN PRESS 






: 



NOT COPYRIGHTED 






48 



TO WHOSE APPRECIATION MANY OF THESE 

VERSES OWE THEIR EXISTENCE — 

WILLIAM F. GABLE 



h 



CONTENTS 

Songs of the Great Adventure 

A Million Jobless Men _ 27 

Audacity 9 

A War Song for Men 30 

California 41 

Give Labor the Vision of a Free Earth 13 

"I Am for Men" 25 

Omitted from the Spoon River Anthology 36 

On and After — 23 

That the Land Be Opened to Man 33 

The White Man's Totem 32 

This Will Come 20 

Title 20 

What's It to You? 40 

Who Will Join The Great Adventure? 21 

Who Will Work for a Free Earth? 10 

New Bottles 

A Man's Prayer 55 

A New Valor 64 

Antinomies 54 

As to Hate 49 

Be Strong First 67 

Earth's God 44 

Hate Gods, Love Men 72 

Hate Is Force 66 

Humility 60 

Life Lures 57 

Man's God 44 

No Man's Keeper 62 

Self Respect 45 

That I May Strive 63 

The Blind Goddess 58 

The Love of Gold or the Love of Man 70 

The Master Motive 74 

The Nativity 50 

Th« New Art 56 



Contents 5 

The New Power 68 

The Old Art 56 

The Only Danger 51 

The Only Revolutionary 48 

The Only Virtue 52 

The State 76 

The Unknown 46 

To Keep the Ideal 53 

Wanted — Men 61 

The Naked Truth 

Be Truthful 80 

Bottom Facts 82 

Business 81 

Culture 82 

I Am Free 83 

If He Were Yours 99 

If We Hated Murder 100 

I Will Not Fight 102 

Only the Poor 97 

Preparedness 84 

Stark Winter 78 

Three Blood Brothers 86 

Two in a Million „ 94 

We Love Murder 98 

We're Going - to Hang- a Boy in California 88 

Where Are the Women of California? 92 

Who Are the Strong? _ 79 

Your Brother 101 

War Lines 

A Flaggerel 110 

All This Killing 112 

Armageddon 104 

If We Must 116 

Its Shame 114 

Its Strut 114 

Peace and War 113 

Slay Your Masters 115 

The Eucharist 116 

The Lesser Evil 113 

The Lie 114 



6 Contents 

The New War 109 

The Real War 109 

War's Masks 106 

War Will Not Cease 108 

New and Old Songs 

A Man Belief 126 

A Plea for Man 120 

Song- of the Hangman 128 

Song of the Printing Press 118 

Song of the Railway Crossing 122 

That Love Be Bold 125 

The Doctrine of Rights 131 

Personal Privilege 

A Friend of Mine , 138 

At the Rosslyn Hotel 145 

Divergence 139 

Fay 140 

Now 144 

Personal Privilege 136 

Why I Stay 142 

Facets of Truth 

Human Nature 151 

Human Nature Percentages 149 

Ideals : 153 

Martyrdom and Sacrifice 154 

Not the Worst Thing 157 

Oodles of Knowledge 155 

Personal Salvation 153 

Still Waiting for Heaven 150 

The Heart Leads 158 

The Line of Cleavage 156 

The Silver Thread 148 

The Source of Power 152 

The World Is Awake 159 



Songs of The Great Adventure 



Songs of The Great Adventure 



AUDACITY 

Indeed, on earth with Fate we shall conspire, 
Recast the wolfish Scheme of Things entire, 

Break feudal codes that hold men from the earth, 
Remold the nations to the Heart's Desire. 

'Tis Fear that cozens Hope of its caress 
And leaves your piety all comfortless. 

'Tis Fear, I say, that robs e'en Love of joy 
And tinges human life with bitterness. 

'Tis Fear, 'tis Fear of flesh, of death, of "lust" 
In Nature, God, or Self, no helpful trust. 

All modern life is ruled by dead men's codes — 
Its Faith is based on shining bits of dust. 

O Man! stand up, and dare be What thou art; 
Dare live, enjoy, demand; forget the mart; 

Dare to be free, dare even that thine Heart 
Shall lead! O, be the very God thou art. 

Dare lift thy head from custom's slavish yoke, 
Tear from Society its tradesman's cloak. 

Dare take the Soil, thy heritage of birth — 
Dare all, dare all! Thyself alone invoke! 

O, be a gambler bold and freely throw 
The dice of life, lay all its hollow show 

Of dross upon the cloth — its Gold to win — 
And play the greatest game the heart can know! 



10 Songs of The Great Adventure 



WHO WILL WORK FOR A 
FREE EARTH? 

Who will work for a Free Earth- 
To establish the rule that no one shall hold 
more land than he uses — 
Who will — Work!— not merely talk and attend 
lectures and banquets — Who will Work 
To end poverty quickly by establishing the 
rule and the law— 
That the Earth shall be open to all on 
equal terms? 

Who will do his share Now — 

Here in California, Oregon, Texas — wherever — 
At This Moment to apply the Golden Rule 
at the base of life — 
To abolish basic laws and customs that pau- 
perize the many by giving the land and its 
resources to monopolists and speculators — 
Who will Work now to establish the rule of a 
Free Earth? 

Who will give all he can — 

Of himself, his talents, his time, his thought, 

his cash, and his energy — 
Whatever he has to give — give it freely, 

finely, generously, 
For no private gain higher or lower 
Than the satisfaction of doing his utmost to 
halt the starving of children, the prostitu- 
tion of maids, the wage slaveries of men and 
women, the disemployment of millions — 
Who will give and work Now? 



Who Will Work for Free Earth? 11 

Here is the Opportunity — 
To take an actual, tangible, definite step in a 

legal and orderly manner 
To achieve the First Necessity of an unenslaved 
Manhood — A Free and Open Earth! 
The rule of which once gained, the down- 
ward pressure toward greater and greater 
human degradation — toward increasing 
suicide, crime, prostitution, and disemploy- 
ment — will be halted! 

On a free and open earth — 
Cooperation will be practicable, 
Real Individualism will be possible, 
Fraternalism's profit can be shared by all, 
The parent Privilege will be dead! 
The root cause of War will be gone! 
The institutions of Comradeship may then 

begin to grow. 
Dreams and longings of the enlightened human 

heart may then take shape. 
Man's innate sense of justice (sans quibble) — 
The human passion to utter freely the Soul's 

fondest boldest deepest urges — 
Manhood's need to be fearless and expansive 

— his everlasting search for the Intangible! 
Womanhood's need for a wholesome earth on 

which to breed Courageous Men — and lure 

them to higher daring with the "starry . 

treachery of her eyes!" — 

All these — and all the lesser or greater things of 
growth, happiness, peace, comfort, expression 
and experience — 
Whatever it is that all or any of us are after — 
All these must Begin! 
How can they otherwise begin save — 

On a Free and Open Earth? 



12 Songs of The Great Adventure 

And here we have made a start — 

Here in California and in Oregon and in 
Texas — 
Here we have drawn a Human Bill 
— a peoples' measure, to be enacted by the 
People — 
A bill that says in essence: "Use your land 
or get off it and let some one else use it — 
use the oil, coal, timber, ores of the earth or 
yield the titles by which you hold them 
idle!" 

By the terms of this bill the People assert 
(grant and establish to themselves) — 
To the Whole People on Equal Terms 
The earth and its resources! — 
Grant and Establish to Themselves at least 
the legal power to control and share fairly 
the land and its produce. 

If there develop "other bridges to cross" 
Before the earth can be opened to all men — 
We shall be the better able to cross them 

having crossed this one unitedly, compactly. 

If other power than legal power 
Shall be necessary to open the earth to man 
We shall be thrice armed and doubly strong 
For having taken the legal power Together! 

Here now is the struggle for a Free Earth 

Fairly begun! 
What will You do to further it? 



Songs of The Great Adventure 13 



GIVE LABOR THE VISION OF A FREE 
EARTH 

Comes a voice: "Labor is Life — Not Vision!" 
Comes to rebuke the idealists, those "dreamy 

men and women filled with ideas." 
A voice 

Echoing the masters' dictum 
That whatever is must be; 
And the church's dogma — 
A few are chosen of God and many not. 

It is not true. What is 

"God and my country" but a vision? 

What are all the shibboleths of the masters — 

Law and Order, Progress, Posterity, 

Patriotism, Majesty of the Law, 

Preservation of the State — 
Would you call them actualities? — 
And a thousand other sounding phrases 
By which the masses are chained — 
What are these but visions? — 
False ideals impressed upon Labor, 
Dreams (nightmares) dogmas 
By which Labor was led to captivity 
And is held there? 

Labor does not originate its own visions 

But its capacity for them is inherent 

Unending profound. 

Labor is led imprisoned bound 

Arid might be Freed 

By visions! 

Above all is Labor Vision — 



14 Songs of The Great Adventure 

Too much so for that it lacks wisdom 

To sift the false from the true 

And falls victim to the abstract ideals 

Most insistently impressed upon it. 

Only by Visions — 

By ideals unattaint of narrow petty personal cash 

or material considerations — 
Shall Labor be led to its own unfoldment, 

For only by visions 

Is Labor deeply stirred 

And blindly led. 

As Labor is led to the shambles 

So it can be led to the Light — 

By Visions. 

Give Labor the vision of a Free Earth 

And a Splendid Manhood 

Here! — in this world — 

Now! — in this generation. 

Give it the vision of an earth free 

Of hate and its gallows — 

An earth with no prisons or penal codes, 

No judges and detectives, 

No landlords and paupers — 

Give Labor a vision 

That will stir its soul to Action, 

Awaken its heroism and daring 

And Manhood! 

Labor is not all blind 
All content with its chains. 
See, it turns toward the Light — 
Yearns for other Visions! 

And we meet Labor's soul hunger 
With logic! with political economy! 
With lectures and resolutions — 



Give Labor the Vision 15 

Of a thousand differing and contradicting kinds. 

We greet Labor with our own 

Lack of Vision 

Or with hopeless theologic platitudes 

A little changed in phrasing. 

Labor staggers confused bewildered 
At the multiplicity of counsel. 
Our mechanized logic frightens it. 
Whom shall it follow — 
Which ist or ism of a dozen? 
And where is the Vision — 
The saner, better, purer Ideal 
Than "God and my country"? 

Labor is not Vision, say you? 

Labor is all Vision — a prisoner to its visions. 

It is we who think a little 

That lack vision. 

Think a little harder, friends — 

Open the heart — 

And back will come the vision — 

The beautiful vision of a Free Earth 

Without paupers, parasites, and prostitutes — 

The vision we have lost 

In wrangling over its distant details, 

In debating how (not) to obtain it — 

The vision of a decenter Home for Man 

On Earth — on a free earth! — 

Forgetful that only Labor can build it. 

We have lost the Vision. 

Open the Heart for its return. 

Let it burn out 

The dissonances of our differences 

And knit us into a compact priesthood 

To lead the human mass 

To its own unfoldment. 



16 Songs of The Great Adventure 

With our regained Vision 

Let us greet Labor. 

With our Vision 

We will arouse in Labor 

Its deepest wildest strongest 

Holiest and boldest Passion 

Of Man for Man, 

The passion of Life and daring 

And High Adventure 

That shall tread down 

Tyrants and tyranny, 

Exploiters and exploitation, 

In a mad mighty rush of Man 

Toward the Light — 

In a sweep as impetuous 

As a band of a thousand bisons 

Obliterating everything in its path — 

As irresistibly as the manhood of Europe 

Swept across the nations and the seas 

To rescue the Holy Sepulchre! 

Labor has no vision? 

It once had! 

And can have again. 

Labor has no vision! 

Whose fault is that? 

Ours. 

We, the makers of visions — 

The natural priesthood of the mass — 

We have failed 

To give Labor a Vision. 

When in distrust 

Of its theologic visions 

It turns to us 

We give it — economics! 



Give Labor the Vision 17 



Labor has had visions, 

Has one now — 

Hell's vision of death and hate and murder 

In Europe. 

And in America 

It clings doubtingly to the old visions, 

The masters' visions — 

But its face is turned our way 

And in its eyes is a cosmic hunger 

A world longing — a mute 

Searching passion for a New Vision 

Ere it plunges 

To another sea of blood. 

No vision! 

Let us give it a Vision — 

An impracticable unattainable 

Dream Vision! 

In its rush to gain which 

It may strike off many chains 

And at the mid-goal 

Find itself on a Free Earth 

Potentially its own master. 

Do we fear? 

Do we doubt? 

What is it that stays us? 

Shall the mass be led only by evil visions? 

Can't the mass be led by 

Love as well as hate? 

Can't it be easier led by 

Love than by hate — 

To its own unfolding 

Than its own undoing? 

The cosmic tide of human progression 
The world wave of democratization 
The trend of all the human centuries 



18 Songs of The Great Adventure 

Are ours to use. 

They await intelligent employment. 

They point the way 

Of Least Resistance! 

Kings priests exploiters 

Have to battle against them. 

They are on our side. 

All the Powers of Light, seen and unseen, 

known and guessed, 
Will aid us. 

Love and intelligence — 
The human head and heart — - 
All their highest mightiest values — 
Those that have saved the race 
From extinction 
In its darkest hours — 
All will be on our side! 

Impracticable ! 

It is the only practicable 

Move on the human horizon — 

The only one that will achieve 

Anything worth crossing the street to get. 

It is the only move 

That can win! 

Greed's tyranny is 

Increasing! 

In America, as elsewhere, 

Its victims grow more numerous 

Every year. 

Manhood is waning! 

Your hope of further education 

Is futile 

On a monopolized earth! 

Why do we haggle and hesitate — 

We, the Intelligent Minority of America? 



Give Labor the Vision 19 



If Labor has no Vision — 
The fault is ours. 

Come, let us regain our Vision 

And show it to Labor — to the human mass- 

And start them on 

The Holiest Crusade 

The weary old world has ever known! — 

Man's Great Adventure — the quest 

For the human alkahest! 



20 Songs of The Great Adventure 



THIS WILL COME 

And Labor bold in all its might shall rise 

Its own to grasp and hold— high heaven emprise! 

The earth to seize and make forever Free — 
Thus strip from Greed its power to tyrannise! 



TITLE 

What mortal makes or adds an inch of land? 
O'er earth let him alone stretch forth the hand 

Of lustful ownership and sun and air 
And liberty and even life command! 



Songs of The Great Adventure 21 



WHO WILL JOIN THE GREAT 
ADVENTURE ? 

Who then will join a movement to release Amer- 
ica's land to its inhabitants upon Equal 
Terms? — 

Destroy Privilege at its Base 

Halt the hunger, prostitution, child labor, and 
"crime" so ridiculously Unnecessary in an 
undeveloped land of immeasurable richness! — 

Stop the Cosmic Hideous Joke of a million idle 
men on a billion Unused Acres ! ! 

Who will join a movement to release Man from 
needless, deadening poverty and free him to 
himself— to his better, truer, kinder, whole- 
some Self that hungers for expression and 
experience, and is deterred first and mainly 
by the terrible economic pressure which 
brings but misery and grief even to the 
few who reap its harvest? 

Who will join — Who will give themselves unre- 
servedly — 
Who will find their own keenest good — 
Who will serve, and dare, with no hope of 
reward or preferment, for no honors, titles, 
emoluments, epaulettes, or iron crosses — the 
greatest cause the world has ever known? 

Who will join the Great Adventure !— to free, not 
a class, not a race nor a color of men, but 
all men! — 



22 Son gs of The Great Adventure 

And make of America the world's Asylum 
where every one may find a 

Home without a Landlord and reap all 
his labor sows? 

Who will join with those who Care and Feel and 

will Resolve to Free the Earth 
Quickly! tomorrow, today, very soon! — in This 

generation ! — Now — 
By the force of numbers! 
By the power of Human Sympathy quickened 

to life from its long sleep in the deeps of 

Man? 
For the manumission of All, regardless of 

class, creed, doctrine, tenet, ism — 
Heeding only the First Human Need, free 

access to the Land! 

Who will help the effort to establish a tenure 
of use and occupance as sole title to earth, 
air, and sky — 
Thus to abolish Exploitation at its root — 
By an Immediate appeal to the Heart of the 

Human Crowd! 
Careful to eschew ephemeral sentimentality, or 
the lower emotions that lead to violence and 
play into the hands of Greed — 
Yet fearless of any contingency, deeming the 
Human Need of paramount importance — 

A concentrated, united appeal, by the Entire In- 
telligent Minority of America — 
Of all the sociologic schools and doctrines — 
Combined in a mighty effort to arouse the 

whole human mass from its Apathy — 
Centering upon the One Demand, a Free Earth 



Who Will Join 23 

(intellectual differences of method to be con- 
sidered afterward) — 
Invoking as its leverage the only power of 
human unanimity, the Heart Force latent in 
every being — 

Who will join The Great Adventure? 



ON AND AFTER 

On and after 

O, what shall the date be? 
On and after which 
No man shall rob another 
By authority of the State. 

On and after 

Men! Let's make it soon! 
On and after which 
No man's daughter need sell 
Her sex for bread. 



24 Songs of The Great Adventure 

On and after 

Are we nearly ready to be Men? 
On and after which 
None shall kill and debauch 
By power of the State. 

On and after 

The world has waited long for 

the date 
On and after which 
Greed shall not fatten 
On human sweat and blood. 

On and after 



Men will blush to recall the day 
On and after which 
Five million jobless wanderers 
Found homes and work on the 
Land! 

On and after 

On and after which 

No man shall hold of earth 

More than he can use! 



Songs of The Great Adventure 25 



I AM FOR MEN 



He stood for Men 

Not for parties, sections, classes; 

Not for dogmas, doctrines, isms — 

Nor all the minutiae of over-elaborated plans for 
the future, 

Nor for craven caution, dissimulation, equivoca- 
tion — 

Patience that now outrages virtue — 

Program'd ways and means which if not followed 

The world may stay in hell. 

He stood for Men 



For in his soul he knew the line of cleavage 
Was not between the robber and the robbed — 
Was not marked by external difference, 
By rank or class or occupation or wealth or 

poverty. 
He knew that poor men could be very cruel and 

rich men kind. 
He knew the line of cleavage was in the heart — 

those who care and those who don't — 
This Henry George who wrote "Progress and 

Poverty." 

He stood for Men 

And was he wrong to yield no tithe to classes? 

What has now become of all the appeals 

To class interest, class consciousness, class soli- 
darity? 

The human heart will not respond to them — in 
every class are tyrants. 

The human mass forgets its every interest, 

Flings to the wind all self and class advantage 



26 Songs of The Great Adventure 



And goes out to die for a word. 

He stood for Men 

And showed the world how to unshackle the 

chains that bind men. 
He showed how poverty begins, 
Where modern slavery has its roots, 
And how to tear them up. 
The earth is for all men, he said — 
And his word has gone around the world — 
And now it's time to act! 



He stood for Men 

Not creeds and doctrines, nor all the lesser de- 
tails of future contingencies. 

He bared the earth to man. 

It is for us to take it. 

He tried to gain it, and was beaten back to his 
death. 

Now we will gain it — 

At whatever cost! 



Songs of the Great Adventure 27 



A MILLION JOBLESS MEN 

A million jobless men — 

On twenty-three hundred million acres of idle 

earth 
Rich with unworked mines, 
Webbed with highways and railroads, 
Watered with rivers and brooks 
Under snow-capped peaks and mountain lakes. 

A Million jobless men — 

In an idle, unused, vacant, fertile land 
Dotted here and there with villages and cities 
In which a hundred million mouths want food 
And a hundred million human needs 
And longings go half supplied. 

A million jobless men — 

Idle, hungry, roofless, sh?bby men 
With ten million women and children depend- 
ent upon them, 
Wandering aimlessly over twenty-three hun- 
dred million acres 
Of land that is mostly fertile and mostly idle — 
Idle, vacant, unused land — and a starving 
people! 

A million jobless men — 

In an idle, vacant, unused land broad enough 
To house without crowding every human be- 
ing in the world — 
Rich enough to support 
All the earth's population, 

Its own few people but partly housed, fed and 
clothed ! 



28 Songs of The Great Adventure 

A million jobless men — 

Clerks, bookkeepers, artisans, laborers, all the 

professions — 
Men with nothing to do, who can find no work, 
While two million stunted children labor in 

mine and mill 
And needy women must sell their sex for food — 
A million or maybe six million jobless men! 

A million jobless men — 

And ten million poorly paid men who get 
barely enough to sustain their families, 

And a million women on the streets, and a 
million hungry children, 

Plus a million mortgaged homes, and a million 
business bankrupts — 

On twenty-three hundred million acres of inex- 
haustible richness not a thousandth part of 
which has been touched! 

A million jobless men — 

And twenty million human dolts content to live 
in hell — 

To lecture, write, legislate, investigate, resolve, 
and vote 

To "cure unemployment!" with a learned Presi- 
dent 

And a cabinet and a congress of economic 
students 

Who institute Employment Bureaus!! to feed 
the hungry, jobless, idle men tramping over 
idle, vacant, undeveloped land! 

A million jobless men — 
And ten million legislators, judges, detectives, 
soldiers, sheriffs, constables, and policemen 
With clubs, guns, bayonets, legal process, penal 



A Million Jobless Men 29 



codes, prisons, handcuffs, dungeons, and 

gallows 
To keep these million jobless men from going 

on the idle, naked, fertile acres 
And feeding themselves, their women, and 

children ! 



A million jobless men — 
In 1914 
Now most all at work making death machinery 

to blow each other to hell! 
The land still idle — and a million wage slaves 

making murder machinery! 



30 Songs of The Great Adventure 



A WAR SONG FOR MEN 

Hear the rumbling legions 
Now the hour of war! 
Not to slay the foeman 
Nor to bleed a state. 
War for human beings, 
Love instead of hate. 

Hear the tramp of millions; 
Nor bombs nor cannon roar 
Only men awakened, 
Aliens by birth — 
Overwhelming legions 
To seize and free the earth! 

Rising are the millions: 
Nor fear nor hope can bar. 
Not for gods or dogmas 
Not for words their fight. 
Singleness of purpose — 
Might befriends their right. 

Race nor creed divide them, 
Gathering near and far; 
Puissant come the millions, 
Captained by their need. 
Thought and care are leading 
Earth to wrench from Greed! 

War *s for gain forever ; 
Then let the gain be ours. 
Keep the braid and tinsel, 
All the minted gold; 
Earth alone we're taking — 



A War Song for Men 31 



Birthright of the bold! 

Scorn your death devices, 
Greed's infernal powers; 
Life itself we're seeking! 
This our first command, 
Pealing now as thunder — 
Open ye the land! 

Rise the famished millions 
Driven off the land; 
Spurning peace or plunder, 
Seeking lust nor loot. 
Thralls to sloth no longer 
The millions sluff the brute. 

Upright humans hungry, 
Fearlessly they band, 
Codes nor laws nor titles! 
O, governments, beware — 
Heed the need of millions — 
Men who know and dare! 



32 Songs of The Great Adventure 



THE WHITE MAN'S TOTEM 

Paper titles to idle acres 

Are the crime and shame 
Of Christendom — 
Its prisons and brothels 
Paupers and billionaires! 

Paper titles to idle oil lands 
Are gasoline at 20 cents 
Plus the wage slaveries 
Disemployment and slums 
Of civilization. 

Paper titles to idle acres 
Are the white man's idol 
His totem and fetish 
His bloody sacrifice 
Of women and children! 



Songs of The Great Adventure 33 



THAT THE LAND BE OPENED TO MAN 

That the land be opened to the people. 
That every adult stand in actu or potenitally on 

his own piece of earth 
From which only death can dislodge him. 

That the whole people say to Greed: 
"The parent privilege is dead: the primal mo- 
nopoly has ceased: the base of exploitation 
is destroyed. 
All have access to the earth without toll or 
price." 

That the people say to Ignorance: 

"We have changed the system of land tenure, on 
which rested your power to enslave. 

Every man shall own himself, and by the privi- 
lege to withhold land shall no man have 
the power to own another. 

The unused earth is free." 

And if Doubt and Envy linger to question: 
"Why one man will have better land than an- 
other — acres more fertile, lots nearer mar- 
ket, sites more pleasing for residence?" 
A child may answer: "Those who hold the bet- 
ter sites will gladly, freely equalize the 
difference to others — when exploitation's 
necessity no longer stifles the better im- 
pulses: 'tis a detail that free men will 
settle in a manly way." 

And the people say: 
"But never again shall Greed or Ignorance gain 



34 Songs of The Great Adventure 

power to rack-rent, distrain, wage-slave, 
pauperize, and disemploy the millions 
Thru the primal curse of land monopoly." 

And if Doubt or Doctrine hesitate and ask: 

"How then with railroads, carriers, utilities, 

banks, trusts, and mines?" 
Even the Child may answer: "How about them 

now? Free land will not increase their 

power." 
And the Student will interpose to say: "Free 

land will greatly or entirely destroy their 

power of exploitation. What is left we 

can then consider." 

That the whole people say to Greed and Ignor- 
ance: 

"There shall be no mortgage on the bare land, 
nor any title thereto but use and occu- 
pance; land is to live on, cultivate, and 
develop — not for speculation. 

None shall own or hold of earth an inch more 
than he can use: every idle lot or acre shall 
be as free as air and sun to him who needs 
it for a home, a store, a workshop, a gar- 
den, or a farm." 

And if the Disputer arise with, "But— If— " 
He shall be silenced by a child again: 
"These are not issues for slaves to settle. Free 
men each with a foothold on the soil will 
settle them in a bold, kind, free way — let 
us not doubt." 
And the Student will add: "Every social and 
industrial problem, nay most of the psycho- 
logic problems too, that men now rack 
their ingenuity to solve, will under free 



That the Land Be Opened 35 



land assume entirely different aspects — 
Free land will change the surface and the heart 
of civilization." 

That the Human Heart thunder to the world: 
"Poverty is dead. Disemployment is ended. The 

earth is open. 
The poor, the weak, the ignorant, the blind shall 

never be trampled and vampirized again 

by the withholding of the unused land — 
For I have bared the bosom of earth to man and 

in her breasts is sustenance inexhaustible." 



36 Songs of The Great Adventure 



OMITTED FROM THE SPOON RIVER 
ANTHOLOGY 

I was the leading singletaxer in Spoon River 
I organized its first singletax club 
I once saw Henry George himself 
And I knew Louis F. Post 
And Daniel Kiefer. 

I wrote articles for the press 

About taxation problems, 

Was a fluent talker 

And could prove the falsities of Karl Marx 

to anybody 
But a socialist. 

I was called the John Z. White 
Of Spoon River. 
We had a flourishing club, 
With after dinner lectures and discussions 
One a month — regular. 
And weekly luncheons at which we discussed 

the shipping bill or the currency question 
And entertained any noted person 
Who came to Spoon River. 

Singletax became favorably known 
To the Better Elements of Society. 
The congregational minister 
Preached a sermon on it. 
We had a debate at the high school, 
"Resolved that singletax is scientific." 

We had an exclusive membership 
Of cultured persons 



Omitted from Spoon River 37 



Tirelessly devoted to the cause of 
Rational taxation. 

If I had lived another year 

I would have gone to the legislature 

Where I could have scrutinized 

Every measure 

In its relation to the Philosophy 

Of singletax. 

■But there arose in our midst 

A band of irresponsible agitators 

Who stirred up the people 

To open the land! 

They were emotionalists 

And would not discuss calmly a compromise 

with those who do not care for the immediate 

Practise of their preaching. 

They ranted about the army of disemployed, 

About women driven to prostitution, 

Men toiling for a pittance, 

Children as wage slaves, 

Babes starving. 

They joined with socialists, 

Anarchists, syndicalists, I.W.W's — 

People like that! 

With anybody who would struggle 
To change the land tenure 
To use and occupancy 
Right away! 

I opposed them eloquently 
And with stratagem 
For their radical demands 
Would alienate from our Cause 
The growing tolerance of the corporations 
and business men, 



38 Songs of The Great Adventure 

The interest of the politicians 
And the curiosity of club women. 
Bankers, leading citizens, the daily press 
Would view us with distrust. 

Could anything be worse 

For the success of a Forward Movement? 

I tried to rally the old war horses 

To stand by their colors 

And preserve the sacred 

And respectable 

Singletax philosophy 

In unsullied purity 

From these anarchists 

And disturbers. 

But the agitators 

Had the voting strength, 

So Mrs. Jonesburg and I resigned 

And started a Singletax Philomathic Society 

For the discussion of proper methods 

To alleviate poverty 

Three-quarters of an inch a year 

Without causing any annoyance 

To Existing Conditions. 

If I had lived 

We might have rehabilitated 

Singletax in respectable circles. 

But the idea 

Of unscientific people 

Led by agitators 

Demanding the whole earth 

Immediately ! 

Was too great a shock. 



Omitted from Spoon River 39 

They said I died 

Of heart failure. 

But I don't understand that 

For the autopsy surgeons 

Couldn't find such an organ 

And said it had probably 

Been absorbed 

In my brain development. 



40 Songs of The Great Adventure 



WHAT'S IT TO YOU? 

What is it to you 

That children starve in a land of plenty 

That girls are driven to the street for food and 

shelter 
And idle men tramp unused acres 
And broken human lives strew every pathway — 
What is it to You? 

Not only the rich are guilty 

Of the pauperism that degrades humanity 

But You, and all, who assent, 

Who do less than the most you can do 

To stay it. Your hands are red 

With the blood of discouraged, starved, 

Women, children, and men — your own kin. 

The guilt is Yours especially who Knowing 

The cause of pauperism 

Do less than you might do to stay it. 

What is it to you that children starve 
Women whore, men steal or beg or tramp 
Merely for bread — in a land of Wondrous Plenty — 
What is it to You? 



Songs of the Great Adventure 41 



CALIFORNIA 

Now 

And as it has been for many shameful years. 

In a land of wondrous plenty, 

Richer than the Indies, 

Children hunger — Maids 

For bread or ribbons ply the street, 

Mothers drudge or steal or starve, 

Or whore — yes, for merely food and shelter! 

(Who make the thing shall hear the word) 

Whores for bread! — thousands, thousands 

In a land richer than the Indies! 

Why 

For lack of Faith and Courage in those who Knew 

For that the earth and all 

Its natural plenty — its idle, unused chances, 

Its mines and wood and streams, 

And fairest, waiting acres — all the 

Source of every human need or heart's desire — 

Its rent and city value — its crops — its wondrous 

yield! 
All are held by ancient paper titles — 
(Dead hands that clutch the living) — held 
By a few — from the many — and most held idle, 
Held away from idle, needy, Living human 

beings ! 

And Then— 

The People of the State of California do enact as follows: 

That Every child have play and plenty 
Every mother All her needs 
Every girl her ribbons and her beau 



42 Songs of The Great Adventure 

Every boy — A Chance to Win! 

Every man have equal access 

To the earth, its acres, mines and trees 

Reaping All he sows! 

That human faces upward turning 

Every soul may grow and dare! 



New Bottles 



44 New Bottles 



EARTH'S GOD 

The Living God stands forth in human birth! 
In fearlessness no power His Will can girth 

To hasten evolution's toiling way, 
Release the millions, paradise the earth! 



MAN'S GOD 

When sundered chains release the prisoned mind; 
When hearts their secret dungeon Prisoner find 

And free! — 'Tis He; 'tis only He who can 
Raze prison walls and fear-bound man unbind! 



New Bottles 45 



SELF RESPECT 

No man is better than I am, 

This I affirm, and dare you to prove 

That any man 

Is better than I am. 

No man is worse than I am, 
This I admit 

And challenge you to show 
A baser man than I am. 

All crimes I have thought 

All virtues I have felt. 

I am greedy, voluptous, deceitful, 

I am generous, true, and courageous. 

We are different shallowty, 
Not better or worse underneath. 
We are what circumstance makes us, 
None is better than I am, and no one worse. 



46 New Bottles 



THE UNKNOWN 

Life is greater than philosophy, 
Than all the schools 
And systems of thought, 
Than all the logicians 
Dead or living. 

I like to think 

No child will ever be born 

On a day when 

All the secrets of nature 

Are known 

And men can read 

All knowledge 

In a printed book. 

Such a little universe 

Would stifle me 

Who find the zest 

The urge and the joy 

Of Life 

In the vastness of the Unknown. 

Life is vaster than all 

The creeds, doctrines, theologies, 

Moralities, religions 

And philosophies — 

Than all the saviors, 

Saints, gods, sages, 

Wise men and fools, 

Dead, living, 

Or yet to be born. 

Life has had a billion 
Times a billion Interpreters 



The Unknown 47 



On this little planet alone 
And remains — Unknown! 

Every sentient creature. 
Is an interpreter of Life 
And every one interprets 
A little differently. 

In this lies not despair 
Or even sadness. 
In this lurks the lure of Life 
And the Why thereof. 

The deeper, truer, bigger 
Joys of Life 
Accrue from its 
Fearless exploration. 

Life would be a prison cell 

For the human mind 

Shut in by the printed page. 

Every soul brings 

New problems to Life — 

Multiplies its wonderful mysteries. 

Life would be a dungeon 
To the human soul 
Could the printed page 
Lessen the vastness 
Of the Unknown. 



48 New Bottles 



THE ONLY REVOLUTIONARY 

Love is the only Revolutionary. 
Not a supine submissive love — 
A bold audacious Love 
That dares anything, everything, 
Even the loss of Dollars! ! 
To gain its darling end. 

A Love that lays Profit, 
Stocks, bonds and dividends 
On the altar of its heart's desire. 
Its own stocks, and bonds, 
And Profit— 
On the altar of Human Welfare! 

Such a Love there is in life; 
Millions of men feel it, 
And daily it shapes 
The course of their lives — 
Only in little ineffectual ways 
Because — 

Our aimless, thoughtless 
Way of land hogging 
Denies Love at the base 
And beginning of life, 
Bringing to naught, 
Turning to ashes 

Turning to fear, 

To unfaith, cruelty 

And self-righteous littleness 

All the fruit that ripens 

From our fondest, boldest, 



New Bottles 49 



Broadest human love. 

Where human life begins 
We will carry our Love 
And end the shameless, 
Heartless barter 
Of human flesh and soul 
For bread or dividends. 



AS TO HATE 

I don't hate the spider that I kill, 
But hate the narrow life I lead 
In which there isn't room enough 
For a spider and myself. 

The soldier doesn't hate the foe he slays, 
Nor the lion hate the lamb he eats, 
I will not hate the men whose 

tenure of earth 
Has pauperized the millions — 



50 New Bottles 



THE NATIVITY 

Plead not with heaven's alien Gods to bless 

Some Holy Babe and Mother far away. 

Be thou thyself the God whose power shall stay 
With human sympathy and love's access 
Whom never Gods bend earthward to caress — 

The Hungry Babes and Mothers of Today! 

Seek thou the Lowly Mothers first, for they 
Need most the touch of manhood's tenderness. 

Round every Infant brow an aureole gleams 
However starved by Greed's brutality. 

The holy Mother in each Mother dreams 
Above the Infant cradled on her knee. 

Sing not of ancient Gods and ancient themes — 
All Babes enshrine whatever Gods there be! 

Freely adapted from one of Alys Thompson's sonnet 
sequences in The Year's Rosary. 



New Bottles 51 



THE ONLY DANGER 

Fear is the World Lust! 
Obsessing human life — 
Poisoning its springs of desire, 
Glooming its sunlight of love, 
Trailing its shadows 
Over every natural joy that bursts 
The heavy bonds of superstition. 
Sans Fear life is worth while. 

Fear is the Serpent in the Garden! 
Fascinating the soul 
To weakness and despair, 
Drawing the feet 
Always in lessening arcs 
To the tomb's embrace. 
Death were cheated but for Fear. 

Fear is the Mother of Sin! 
Dashing to the mud 
The soul's reach starward; 
Defiling the Garden's 
Rose-laden air 
With stench of the Puritan. 
On the warp of Fear is woven 
All that swineherds call sin. 

Fear dethrones the true God! 
Robs man of faith in — Himself! 
Skulking Fear 
Of pain, of death, of loss — 
Ignoble Fear to stand alone! 
Sans Fear of tomorrow 
Man will reach his Godhood. 



52 New Bottles 



THE ONLY VIRTUE 

That pluck abide with kindness, 
Courage stay with thought, 
Daring and decency be friends, 
Intelligence evade mushiness, 
Sympathy sidestep impotence, 
Love remain virile to the end. 

That the strength and the hardness of steel 
In the hour for action 
Come from the deeps of Men 
Who can think and feel! 

That brutality, sentimentality, 
Aimlessness, stupidity, froth, 
With cunning, greed and gluttony, 
Be not the sole possessors 
Of manhood's only virtue — 
Courage ! 



New Bottles 53 



TO KEEP THE IDEAL 

Have you a love that you would keep? 

Pour it out into a larger love. 

Have you a friendship you would hold? 

Share it with the world. 

Have you an ideal you would not lose? 

Lay it on the Altar to Man. 

Nothing is an end in itself. 

Everything is only a means to something else. 

Satiety is the only sin. 

Only what is given can be kept. 

What is hoarded turns to Ashes. 

Nothing is stationary. 

Treasure grows or lessens. 

This is true of a love, a friendship, or an ideal. 

To keep it, share it. 

Love is not an end in itself, 

But a means of human growth. 

Everything is for use, 

Nothing is "for keeps." 

Things, qualities, thoughts, feelings — 

The world and its contents 

Tangible and imponderable — 

Are for the growth of Man. 

You have heard this before 

And gushed over it, no doubt. 

Now stop the gush and get it into your system 

Live it! Save your love, 

Hold your friendship, 

Keep your ideal 

By use! 



54 New Bottles 



ANTINOMIES 

I will not ask of Life 
More than I am 
Willing to pay for. 

I will not seek 

To be drunk and sober 

At the same moment — 

Drunk of wine, women, thought, 
music, poetry, of the wild 
splendors of nature, or the 
beautiful creations of art. 

I will not ask of Life 

Joy without effort, 

Health without care, 

Wealth without work, 

The approval of my neighbors 

Without consideration 

For their welfare. 

I will not seek in Life 

For the blending of opposites, 

Nor an ultimate God. 

I will not expect 
Gluttony without satiety, 
Drink without remorse, 
Excess without lassitude, 
Anger without regret, 
Hate without grief. 

I will seek no thornless Rose, 
Nor curse heaven 
At the scratches. 



New Bottles 55 



I will seek the essence 
Of the Rose 
And avoid its thorns — 
When I can. 



A MAN'S PRAYER 

distant God 

If Thou art in heaven 
Or anywhere — 

1 don't know. 

Thou hast not revealed 

Thyself to me — 

Yet hopefully, 

Anxious to miss no point — 

O alien God 

If Thou art outside of man 

Give me power to combat 

The bigotry hate envy 

Of Thy devotees, 

The tortures crimes cruelties 

Perpetrated 

For Thy glory. 



56 New Bottles 



THE OLD ART 

The old art makes man 

The scapegoat 

Of creeds, conventions, moralities, 

Gloats over the soul's efforts 

To disentangle itself 

From artificial codes. 



THE NEW ART 

The new art leaves man 

Above moralities, 

And seeks its unities 

In the human struggle 

Out of the web 

Of the exploiter's conventions. 



New Bottles 57 



LIFE LURES 

Life lures 

To fresh endeavors. 

Is it only a lure? 

Life beckons 

To new adventures. 

Must all fail? 

Life reveals 
Higher aspirations. 
Shall none satisfy? 

Life shows 

Another peak — 

Yes, the peaks are endless. 

Mountains pile 
On mountains — 
Still a higher summit. 

Life leads 
Upward, upward — 
If one be unafraid! 

Life — halts 

The climber and says 

Take the crowd along! 

What a lonely 

Heaven, with 

Only one soul in it! 



58 New Bottles 



THE BLIND GODDESS 

Symbol of a darker age — 

Hewn by men who feared the gods; 

Nor sensed the Silver Thread 

Nor knew the bond of kinship. 

She holds the scales of Shylock 
To weigh a pound of human flesh. 

Symbol of the Jealous God — 
Conceived by Envy 
That hoards its own and counts 
The crumbs eaten by another. 

Scales weigh only gold and goods, 

Scales weigh never motive. 

Symbol of the tradesman's age — 
When things count more than humans 
And children's flesh balances dividends 
And property weighs more than life or hope. 

Lust and hate alone are blind. 

Love sees with a million eyes. 

Symbol of superstition — 

Born in the night of man's great fear, 

Sponsored by monk and mercenary, 

Dipped in the blood of heretics. 

There is no justice without mercy, 
Care, thought, understanding, and love. 

Symbol of materiality — 

Chiseled by bound slaves 

To weigh surfaces and appearances; 

Blind — all blind — to the Inner God. 
Sign of slave and tyrant — 
Give us the emblem of Democracy. 



The Blind Goddess 59 

Symbol of submission — 

Fashioned by men afraid to love; 

Denial of man's divinity. Serving 

The ancient Greed and the modern Privilege. 

Give us a marble cut by free men. 

Give us a symbol with a Soul! 



60 New Bottles 



HUMILITY 

Humility is the crowning virtue. 

Dare slaves assume it? 

The attribute of gods, kings, rulers — even of one 

who might rule self! 
On the brow of the mighty having power over all 
Humility is the brightest jewel in the last and 

most resplendent sceptre. 
Dare slaves reach for it? 

Humility — so large a jewel — 

Would bow the head of God Almighty 

So he could see the chains of slaves 

And strike them off. 

By this sign ye shall know the True God — 

That having all power he ask nothing 

And raise all men to his stature! 

Humility never graced the life of slave or 

underling: 
Servility bows them. 

Subaltern and slave whose breasts burnt not 
With hot flames of unceasing 
Rebellion — 

Who patiently wait, submit, and argue 
While children toil and women starve 
Amid plenty — 
Know not humility, but Cowardice! 



New Bottles 61 



WANTED — MEN 

Wanted — Men! 
Able-bodied men, 
Bold-hearted men, 
To enlist in a holy war 
Against poverty. 

Wanted — Men! 

To fight for 

Women and children 

As bravely as 

For kings and queens. 

Wanteds— Men ! 

A million men 

To brave death and torture 

Gallows and prisons — 

To dethrone Privilege. 

Wanted — Men ! 

To dare as much for human 

beings in America 
As for property "rights" 
In Europe. 

Wanted — Men! 
To wrest from 
Greed and monopoly 
The unused land of America- 
Men unafraid. 



62 New Bottles 



NO MAN'S KEEPER 

I am no man's keeper. 
No jail keys 
Rattle in my head 
Or heart. 

If I am not 

My brother's helper 

When I may be 

The loss is equally my own. 

I will keep no one — 
His conscience 
His judgment 
Or his earnings. 

Keepers bring jails 
And gallows. 
Keepers are tyrants 
In hate or in love. 

Not your way, but mine 
Would I go — kindly. 
The soul hungers most 
For Self expression. 

The urge of life 
Is to Individual difference. 
Keepers, in love or hate, 
Make the discord — 

Sad confusion of thought 
That harbors the exploiter! 
Man is his brother's helper, 
Not his keeper. 



New Bottles 63 



To help is love's way: 
Anon to bind a wound; 
Usually not to rob 
And never to hinder. 



THAT I MAY STRIVE 

That I may die in strife 
'Gainst slavery! 
Teeth set, hands clenched 
To every static bond 
In Christendom. 

That death find me 

Far out from the ranks, 

Strike quick 

And fell me face forward, 

Hating all that limits man. 

Life's joy is its strife, 

The battle 'gainst odds 

Its oil, its wine, and its bread: 

Of to fall under fire 

And escape a smug death in bed! 



64 New Bottles 



A NEW VALOR 

A new valor stirs the blood 

Of Men. 

They shall despoil 

The strong, the rich, the mighty, 

Whoever hath overmuch 

Where many starve. 

Boldly, with conscious dignity 

Men shall rob the over-rich. 

It is taught that 
Love shall be slavish 
And kindness meek. 
On this is founded 
The christian cruelties. 
But the new valor 
Brings power to Love, 
And daring to kindness. 

The old valor saith 

That from those who have not 

Shall be taken 

And to those who have 

Shall be given more. 

Thus do the christians 

As told in their books — 

The creed of cravens. 

Thus is it written in ink 

By long-dead hands 

Palsied with fear, 

In tomes rotten 

Of the centuries' dust. 

The moving Finger write* 



A New Valor 65 



In blood 

From the heart of Men. 

And it says: 

Kindness shall be 

Bolder than hate! 

It stirs a new valor 

In men unafraid 

Who shall despoil the rich 

And unseat Profit 

That all may have enough. 

The new valor stirs 
To action! 

The weak, the ignorant 
Shall not be robbed 
By the cunning. 
Kindness shall thunder 
To lust: You alone 
Shall be robbed. 

And the voice will 
Be heard! 

The lowly and the poor 
Shall not be coddled — 
Thus do the christians 
In charity — 
But hear ye the 
Thunder of Kindness: 
They shall not be robbed! 



66 New Bottles 



HATE IS FORCE 

Hate is a strong force. 
I will hate the chains of men — 
The institutions, superstitions, 
And conditions that bind them. 

A good hater is a strong man — 
But I will not hate myself, 
Which is part of all other selves. 
I will hate things, not men. 

I will hate gods, creeds, states, 
And all that belittles Man. 
I will hate words and ideas 
That enslave men. 

Who hate men have little hate 
For the chains that bind them, 
And little force or care 
To break the chains 
At whatever cost. 



New Bottles 67 



BE STRONG FIRST 

Masters teach their slaves 
To "turn the other cheek" 
When they are beaten. 
But the new valor 
Will brook no blow. 

Masters teach their slaves 
To be long-suffering 
Under oppression. 
But the new valor 
Will slay the oppressor. 

Masters teach their slaves 
Be good, be moral, 
And you shall have 
First choice of the crumbs 
From our table. 

But the new valor says 
Be strong, be bold, 
And rout your masters — 
Only strength is good, 
And weakness sin. 

Only strength can win. 
Be strong first! 
Life and the world 
And all their good 
Are for the strong. 



68 New Bottles 



THE NEW POWER 

O then to Think 
Means not to Feel? 
The Head must not 
Take counsel of the Heart? 
Thus teach the christians. 

Thought in one tank, 

Feeling in another — 

Ce n'est pas comme il faut 

To mingle thought and feeling 

In a single act. 

So do the christians. 

But a new light flashes 

To pierce the christian gloom — 

A wondrous birth — 

From the union 

Of Head and Heart. 

Lo, the Intellect 

And the Soul are wed! 

Coward Words go tumbling 

To the ash heap, 

And Deeds accomplish! 

The new birth is Sympathy. 
Froth of easy sentiment 
And cruelty of intellect 
It banishes: the child 
Of the fusion leads! 

The bank wants human feeling, 
Religion's lack is thought. 



The New Power 69 

The market-place needs poetry. 
Art needs sense and depth and care. 
Slavery lurks in aimlessness! 

Lo, the Heart and Head 

Are wedded! 

Come — 

To Greed a bolder foe, 

To Love a deeper meaning, 

To the Many, at last, Power! 



70 New Bottles 



THE LOVE OF GOLD OR THE 
LOVE OF MAN 

I never knew a man 

Who feared not the alien God 

Nor loved him, but was the kinder 

To his neighbor 

And had a fine, firm 

Faith in Men. 

I never knew a thief 

Or forger but feared an alien God 

And loved him — 

A sneak, a pimp, or 

A detective, but confessed 

A distant God and feared him. 

Maybe 

(Tho I have not met one) 

An "atheist" could also 

Be cold and vicious, 

But the million babes in arms 

And playful children 

Are starved and tortured 

In the name of a heavenly 

God and Jesus. 

In the love of the alien God 

Lies the hate of man 

And full extenuation 

For all the bloody murder 

The weeping, christian world 

Has ever seen. 



Love of Gold or Man 71 

The "love of God" 

Means the love of Gold 

And ever has, by far and large, 

And ever must. 

The "love of God" 

Brings the love of Gold. 

For man cannot 
Love an Abstraction. 
The human heart impinges 
Seeks the Tangible. 

In God the heart is cheated, 
And the cheated heart 
Turns to Gold. 

I announce a new faith, 
A new hope, 
A new religion 
(Older than the hills) — 
The love of Men! 



72 New Bottles 



HATE GODS, LOVE MEN 

Ye are taught to love gods — 
The creed of slaves. 
Ye shall be masters of self 
And of none other than self, 
When ye shall cease to 
Love any god and center 
Hope and thought and love 
And interest on Man. 

Ye are taught to fear gods — 

Dogmas of cowardice. 

Those who fear neither 

God nor Satan 

Are your masters and exploiters. 

Ye shall fear nothing. 

Ye shall cease to fear 

And dare all. 

Ye shall find Self 

Each man himself — 

When all gods under all aliases 

Shall be dethroned. 

Not law, evolution, the state, 

Prosperity, posterity, 

Progress, or providence — 

But Man (each to himself) 

Shall be first. 

Ye shall hate gods and love Men. 
Ye shall love even Self 
And seek self-interest first; 
Not behind lying cant 
As do the christians, 



Hate Gods, Love Men 73 

But openly and with 
Much pains to discover 
The real interests of Self. 

Ye shall know Self 

The true Self 

The whole Self 

The body, mind, and soul 

Of self — when gods are forgotten 

And care and thought 

Are centered 

On Man! 

In the love of gods 

Lies the hate of Man, 

For none serves two masters. 

The hate of Man 

Breeds the needless grief 

And pain unutterable 

Of Christendom — 

Hate gods and love Men. 

In the fear of gods 

Lie sin and weakness. 

Here is true valor: 

That ye fear not the Unknown. 

Fearless of which ye shall be 

Strong for the tortures 

And prisons of Greed 

And attain — Comradeship. 



74 New Bottles 



THE MASTER MOTIVE 

Superficial appeals to the human crowd 

Its pocket-book and its cupidity 

Its business interests, personal advantage, 

Will bring superficial results 

A million of which multiplied by a million 

Will not produce a profundity — 

Nor a tangible inch of freedom. 

Human freedom is the profoundest thing 
The heart and mind can reach 
Or has any decent right to try to reach 
While human lives are wrecked by Greed 
Every day and hour before our eyes — 
While the mortality and destitution of Profit 
Exceeds the death roll of the world war. 

When the primal passions 

Are stirred the mass will Act, 

Unitedly and spontaneously 

To compass great and vital issues 

For good or for ill 

For construction or destruction 

For Death or for Life! 

So moves the human mass 

So is it moved toward the Ideal 

By the inextinguishable human Urge 

For Something — something Better 

Than the personal end — 

It knows not what 

But is spurred ever by the Ideal. 

So is the human mass. 
Would you move it 



The Master Motive 75 

To its own unfoldment — 

From the damned death psychology 

Of Profits' world war? 

Touch its heart. 

The greatest, strongest, deepest 
Primal instinct of every being 
The "master motive of human action" 
The "force of forces" 
That alone can reach freedom 
-Is the impulse of expansion — 
We call it Love. 

Not the servile patient 

Slave "love" of christian theology. 

By that rules the Exploiter. 

The deep unfearing audacious Love 

That sees the Goal alone 

Leaps the chasm blindly 

Fells like fire the Foe. 

Nothing less will break the war spell 

Or stem the wave of slaughter 

For greed of wealth, 

Or turn the mass thought 

From Death machines 

To welfare — 

To life and hope and growth. 

Nothing less will gain 

An inch of human freedom 

Or strike the chains from wage slaves 

Or turn the children 

And the nursing mothers from the alleys 

To a free and open earth. 

Nothing lessl 



76 New Bottles 



THE STATE 

The strength of the State 

Is the weakness of the People — 

Its wealth is their poverty 

Its dignity is their degradation. 

Mighty State- 
Little Manhood! 
Rome reared its splendor 
On sixty million slaves. 

The pomp of the State 

Is the servility of the People — 

Its pride is their shame 

Its glitter is their gloom. 

The State is a superstition, 
Heartless, bloodless, beingless 
Save as it draws sustenance 
From living creatures. 

The palaces of the State 
Are the hovels, the slums, 
And the mortgaged homes 
Of the People. 

The richest State 
Means the poorest People 
And the greatest cruelty 
Of the few to the many. 



The Naked Truth 



78 The Naked Truth 



STARK WINTER 

In the summer 

I will sing of flowers 

And fling pretty phrases 

At the hearts 

Of fair women. 

I will image palaces of hope 
And social structures 
Where human beings 
Might live and strive 
Without hate. 

In the summer 

When the pulse throbs 

Atune with earth's 

Creative impulse. 

In the winter 

As thru a lense I see 

Life's barbarities and superstitions 

Focalized. 

I see broken lives, 
Starving children, 
Mortgaged homes; 
Love lost or defiled 
For profit or for bread; 
Power's cruelty to the weak. 

I long for the summer 

Of roses and hope, 

But may the winter of reality 

Ever stir me to act. 

For only action 

Brings the Ideal. 



The Naked Truth 79 



WHO ARE THE STRONG? 

Is it Great to mulct the little, 
Or Fine to cheat the poor? 
Do the Strong oppress the lowly, 
Wring taxes from the landless? 

Does Strength beat cripples, 
Or Courage starve women? 
Is it Masterful to strike the blind, 
Or crush a weakling? 

Such is christian valor — 
To hang the daring bandit, 
Enrich and honor 
The craven exploiter! 

We cripple the weak, 
Trample the meek, 
Despoil the ignorant, 
Starve the infant at birth. 

Even charity is graft. 
And we boast 
Of Strength and Courage! 
Who are the Strong? 



80 The Naked Truth 



BE TRUTHFUL 

Lie to others if you must — 
To the jealous wife, 
The importune creditor. 

It will save you 
Much trouble 
If you don't. 

But — if you must — 
Lie to your tradesmen 
And your mistress — 

Sell goods by lying, 
Gain what you will 
By falsehood — 

So wags the world. 
Or appears to. 
But— 

Tell yourself the truth. 
"I am a knave and a liar," 
Say often. 

Deceive others if you must, 

Tho courage finds it seldom necessary- 

But— 

"I am a liar and a knave" 
Say to yourself 
Frequently. 

It is better not to lie 
Very much. But — 
Tell yourself the truth! 



Be Truthful 81 



No one is wholly 
Truthful, in Christendom — 
But don't lie to yourself. 

"I am a scoundrel" — 
Say it often in secret. 
You are! 

Who is not in Christendom? 
Don't lie 
To yourself. 



BUSINESS 

I am a business man. 

I must cheat, haggle, exploit. 

Ninety-five per cent of us fail 

Because we cannot kill 

All our human qualities 

And remain to the end tricksters and brutes. 

I am a business man. 
In my heart I loathe it. 
Deep within me was a hunger 
For life and love and friendship 
That I have almost strangled. 

I am a business man. 

Who has Succeeded! 

After long years of bitter strife 

And preying on the weak 

I have won these Ashes. 



82 The Naked Truth 



CULTURE 

I am tired of art and beauty 
And all their tinsel twaddle; 
I am tired of logic and philosophy 
And all their endless chatter; 
I am heart-sick and soul-tired 
Of Culture- 
While a million children starve! 



BOTTOM FACTS 

They seize the earth — 
its ore, coal, oil, and 
timber, hold the larger 
part idle and sell the 
product for what they 
please: that's the bottom 
fact of High Prices. 

They seize the earth — 
its unused fertile acres, 
and hold them out of use, 
which crowds the city 
with workers who must 
bid against each other for 
jobs: that's the bottom 
fact of Low Wages. 



The Naked Truth 83 



I AM FREE 

I am free 

To choose, sometimes, 
Which master of the earth 
I may elect to serve. 

I am free 

To sell myself, if I can find a buyer, 

For enough to feed 

And clothe myself. 

I am free 

To beg, or steal, if I can, 
Or starve- 
In a land glutted with wealth. 

I am free 

To pinch and screw and save 

And give the best energies of my life 

Merely to gain a roof. 

I am free 

To wander homeless 

Over twenty-three hundred million acres mostly 

vacant, unused, 
In search of a job. 

I am free 

To push out a worker 

And take a job 

From one whose need may be greater than mine. 

I am free 

To be a prostitute, beggar, thief, 

Or to tramp with the disemployed. 



84 The Naked Truth 



PREPAREDNESS 

Thieves go well armed. 

Assassins, detectives 

Manhunters 

Must always be prepared 

Against invasion — 

A troublesome necessity 

Of their calling. 

Houses that shelter 
Stolen goods, 
Houses that sell 
Woman's bodies, 
Homes of the insane, 
Jails and penitentiaries 
Need guns, bars, and guards 
Violence always threatens. 

Homes of billionaires 
Where are gathered 
In monstrous superfluity 
Wealth rended from 
Countless broken lives 
And homeless paupers — 
Need a vast army 
To protect them. 

Banks that hoard 
Working capital 
From tradesmen 
Until their necessities 
Wring blood usury 
Need more than time locks 
And steel vaults 
To save them. 



Preparedness 85 



Titles to idle acres, 

Mortgages on homes, 

The penal code, 

Privileges and monopolies, 

Sweatshops, 

Slums 

Gallows — 

Need much "preparedness." 

The house of exploitation 

Is safeguarded 

By murder. 

Despoliation fattens 

On the war psychology. 

Chains rattle 

Above the roar 

Of death machinery. 



86 The Naked Truth 



THREE BLOOD BROTHERS 



I am Palaver — 
Of many aliases: 
Security of the State, 
National Honor, 
Civilization, Humanity — 
The spoken or written 
Word, to which 
The Individual 
Is forever sacrificed 
By Greed. 

I am Cant the hypocrite, 
Loved and feared 
By ignorance 

II 

I am Patriotism — 
Provincial and bigoted; 
Hating all but my own, 
Ready to persecute 
And murder 
For a word or a look 
Alien to my understanding. 
I am the little heart 
And the narrow brain. 
I am ignorance, creed, 
And the church. 
I am he who kills 
And dies for Greed. 



The Naked Truth 87 

III 

am Profit — 

The modern Moloch, 

The western Juggernaut, 

The only essential 

Individualist 

The world has ever known. 

For me all things exist 

And all creatures. 

On my altars 

Are spread 

The life of childhood, 

The heart of manhood, 

The souls of women. 



88 The Naked Truth 



WE'RE GOING TO HANG A BOY IN 
CALIFORNIA 

We're going to hang a boy — 

Twelve men, a regular physician, a schooled 
jurist, and a cityfull of righteous people have 
condemned — a boy of eighteen. 

Whom the wisest of earth, its saviors, prophets, 
and sages, have refrained from judging; 
whom the Central Figure of the era (in 
whose name the nations are filled with 
temples) admonished the world to "Judge 
Not" — twelve men, a regular physician, a 
schooled jurist, and a cityfull of righteous 
people have not only judged but condemned 
— a boy of eighteen. 

We're going to hang a boy — 

Not in passion's blinding mists, or youth's high 

fever that riots thru distended veins and over- 
throws the inner God. 
Not in lightning spur to lust of blood — the quick 

flowering of an atavistic germ from cave and 

forest. 
Not for a sudden clot that bursts a tiny vein 

and floods a lobe and clouds the mental vision. 
Not for a flashing impact on a nerve that 

reaches from the spleen and dethrones the 

clay's master. 

We're going to hang a boy — 

To uphold the majesty of the law, maintain the 
dignity of the State — a boy of eighteen — to 
prove that California is an order-loving 
commonwealth. 



We're Going to Hang a Boy 89 

Three million people against a boy of eighteen. 
We will hang him to prove our courage, our 

virtue, and our civilization. 
And the church of Jesus Christ is approvingly 

silent. 

We're going to hang a boy — 

A jury, a doctor, and a "Daniel come to 
judgment" have condemned a boy — read his 
heart, searched his soul, pierced the secret 
chambers of his mind, laid bare the human 
ego, and found it all bad! 

A jury, a doctor of physics, and a Daniel, have 
measured the surging impulses of hot youth, 
balanced the force of impact and impulsion, 
read the record of the motor brain areas — 

And found the boy sane and bad — quite sane and 
all bad, and have ordered him hanged. 

We're going to hang a boy — 

We hope. The sentence may not stand — ah, 
well, we have had our orgie. 

We have gloated at the spectacle in court. 

The mother moaned, the sister screamed, the 
boy was bold — then cowed by the brave and 
manly judge, he trembled, hid his face in his 
hands, as the fatal words of the learned judge 
fell — manly, learned, righteous judge — (I'd 
rather be a wolf.) 

Tho the hangman be cheated, we have had 
our orgie. 

We have heard the mother moan, the sister 
scream, and seen the boy tremble! 

We're going to hang a boy — 
A bad boy. Why is he bad, because he murdered? 
Then is he sane because he murdered? Or 
did he murder because he was sane? 



90 The Naked Truth 

Did the doctor measure the boy's sanity by his 
own? Would the doctor do murder? Is it 
only fear of hanging that keeps the doctor 
from murdering? Then the boy were a braver 
soul. If the doctor will consider why he 
would not murder, he will reach a truer 
measure of the boy's sanity. 

If the doctor has a better test of sanity than 
murder is, he is wiser than God. 

We're going to hang a boy — 

Unless the supreme court intervenes — or the 
governor. 

Why are we going to hang the boy? To show 
that murder is wrong? — but we are going to 
murder him. Murder means killing. We are 
going to kill the boy — we hope — 

We kill to show that killing is wrong. We are 
not only a brave people — three million against 
one boy; we are also a sensible, rational, in- 
telligent people. 

If it is wrong to kill, why do we kill? 

We're going to hang a boy — 

Eighteen years from God. Take him back, 

God, he's bad, all bad, not fit to live with the 

three million inhabitants of California. 
Murder is right; we are going to murder a boy. 
It's the boy that's bad, not murder. 
Why is the boy bad? because he is sane; if he 

were not sane he would not be bad and we 

would not hang him. 
Take him back, God — we reject him; he's all bad 

— a bad boy not fit to live with us. 

We're going to hang a boy — 
Why are we going to hang him; because in a 



We're Going to Hang a Boy 91 

hot flash he did murder? O, no; we are going 
to murder him — in cold blood — deliberately. 

Because he is sane? Many are sane and do 
murder and are not hanged — those who 
murder scores for profit, in a cheaply pro?- 
tected mine drift, or because life-boats are 
expensive. 

Because he is bad? Many bad people are not 
hanged. Because he is bad, sane, and a 
murderer? Many have been all these and 
were not hanged. 

Why were they not hanged? Because they 
were very Wealthy! 

We're going to hang a boy — 

Because he is poor! His people haven't much 
money. 

If this bad, sane boy were the child of multi- 
millionaires do you think he would have been 
sentenced to hang? 

If you do you are very guileless. 

If the boy's father were very rich he could 
have engaged the services of a dozen eminent 
psychiatrists who would have testified 
(truthfully) that the boy was insane. 

We are going to hang the boy because he is 
Poor! 



92 The Naked Truth 



WHERE ARE THE WOMEN OF 
CALIFORNIA 

Where are the women of California — 

The wise matrons, the honored sisters, the 

virtuous wives, and the enlightened spinsters 
Who gained the ballot to uplift society? 
Where are the women milder and truer than 

men, of deeper impulse and wider sympathy? 
Where are the enfranchised women, while the 

gallows is building 
On which to hang a boy? 

Where are the women of California — 

More humane and benign than men, with ten- 
dered sensibilities and nobler purpose to 
humanize society, soften its barbarous customs 
and replace its ancient cruelties with decenter 
statutes than those of fang and claw? 
Where is the gentler sex with purer love and 
higher instincts to lead mankind from savage 
passions and primitive blood-lust? 
Doesn't it hear the dull stroke of the hammer 
in the old lumber room of San Quentin? 

Where are the women of California — 
With the mother hunger for every mother's son 

in distress and hate for none — 
Who value the life of youth more than the 

jungle law of revenge? 
Where are the mothers whose ways are kinder 

and wiser than those of the hangman? 
Where is the noble motherhood, the gentle 

sisterhood, the precious maternal instinct — 



Where Are the Women? 93 



Where do they hide that they cannot hear the 
building of the gallows on which two sons of 
mothers are to be hanged? 

One of twenty- three and one of eighteen? 

Where are the million mothers of California? 

Where are the women of California — 

Who will not hypocritically hide their lust of 

revenge 
By fatuously asking, What else can we do with 

a boy who kills another? 
Where are the women whose love for the un- 

slain, and care for those who have not killed, 

is stronger than their hate of a mentally 

weak boy? 
Where are the wise women of impersonal view 

who will discourage murder by suppressing 

the state's example of murder? 
Where are the women who loathe murder more 

than the blind victims thereof? 

Where are the women of California — 

Whose finer feminine intuitions have raised 

them above the brute instincts of men? 
Where are the women who will bring moral 

vigor to civilization and lure us away from the 

fear and hate of cave days — 
The women less crude and cruel than the 

shrinking low-browed males of California 

who have no shame to hang a boy? 
Where are the women, better than men, to save 

a boy from the gallows? 

Where are the women of California — 

Whose sympathies are wider than their skirts — 
Their mentalities stronger than their love of 

tango? 
Where are the women, the voting women, with 



94 The Naked Truth 

mind and heart reaching beyond the boundary 

each of her own little nest? 
A hundred real women could wipe the stigma of 

the public hangman off the seal of the state. 
Where are the women of California! 



TWO IN A MILLION 

Braver than soldiers stalking to kill — 

Than heroes their own lives who take or give. 

True as who live when death were easier. 

Rash as those splendid gamblers 

Throwing dice with the unknown 

For gain of knowledge. 

Bold as seekers for the Pole 

Or the Congo's source — as those 

Who dare the skiey whirlpools. 

These play for gain that is dross 
To the mother's gain 
Who pleads for the life of the boy 
That slew her own. 



Two in a Million 95 



These play for honors, excitement, 
For gold, or for peace; 
But what the widow's gain 
Pleading for the life that 
Killed her children's father? 

What have they braved? 
The jeers of a hate-ridden world, 
Contempt of the shallow and emotional 
Alien to deep sympathy — 
'The sneers of the modern jungle 
Whose denizens still proudly share 
The passions and impulses 
Of the wasp and the wolf. 

What have they dared? 

To do what the pious preach 

And never practise; to be 

What sages admonish all to be 

And few are; not to seek revenge. 

They have honored their dear dead 

By love complete 

That leaves no room for hate. 

What is their courage? 

To brave the contumely of lawyers 

And judges — 

The scorn of the self-righteous, 

The abuse of that poverty-fear 

Whose craven imbecility 

Keeps the hangman's law 

On the statutes of California. 

They have braved public opprobrium 
And the ridicule of the smug. 
From a thousand pulpits 
They will be rated "sentimental." 
They have braved 



96 The Naked Truth 

The orthodox church 
And the harlot press. 

Their gain — if but the hope of gain 

Can spur the heart and head 

To act in concert — 

Their gain? 

Who understand alone may know. 

What light is to darkness, 

And love is to hate, 

Such is their gain. 



Daughters of the Newer Eve! 
Yours the light what time 
Earth's gloom shall cleave? 
Temptresses with riper fruit! 
Yours the lure of men bold-hearted 
In the long pursuit. 

Fair! ah, sisters fair! 

'T is men, not brutes, 

Your "sacrosanct cajoleries" ensnare. 

Nor man nor Superman 

Might live to grieve 

His "soul's enmeshment in your hair." 



The Naked Truth 97 



ONLY THE POOR 

Only the poor we hang — 
Never the rich! 
Not all the poor we hang — 
But none of the rich! 

Not for murder we hang — 
And only the poor! 
Many slay and are free, 
But not the poor! 

To kill for profit, 
Betray and debauch, 
Are common things — 
For the rich! 

The hangman guards 
The loot of Privilege! 
We hang only the poor — 
Never the rich! 



98 The Naked Truth 



WE LOVE MURDER 

We love murder — 
And hate the man. 
We gloat on the crime 
And loathe the man. 

Our venom 

We exhaust on the man — 
And wallow exultant 
In the shocking crime. 

Our jaded appetites 
Morbidly revel in the details 
Of the murder — 
And shrink from the man. 

By press, code, gallows 
We foster crime — 
And hate men. 
We love murder. 



The Naked Truth 99 



IF HE WERE YOURS 

Judge, if he were your boy, 

Would you hang him? 

"The law" is two words — nothing more. 

Those two words — of hate and revenge — 

Are impotent without your interpretation. 

You speak the word of death! 

Governor, if he were your boy 
You would not sign that death warrant. 
If he were the son of your old friend, 
The son of your political manager, 
The son of the woman you loved — 
You would not sign the death warrant. 

Warden, if he were your son, 

Would you hang him? 

No; it is not "the law" that hangs him. 

Only human beings can build a gallows, 

March a boy or a man on it, 

And spring the trap that hurls him Out. 



100 The Naked Truth 



IF WE HATED MURDER 

If we hated murder — 

We would cease to encourage it; 

Cease to feed it on Poverty, Hate, Fear; 

Cease to breed it by gruesome spectacles 

And inculcate it 

By the subtle force of suggestion. 

If we intelligently discouraged murder — 
Judges, detectives, sheriffs, keepers, lawyers 
Would lose their jobs, dignities, salaries. 
In every population are many, 
Whose incomes depending on crime, 
Are not interested to lessen murder. 

If we hated murder — 
And thought hanging would lessen it 
We would hang even the rich. Once 
We hanged a man who had $75,000 — 
But not until the last penny of it 
Was gone for legal fees and expenses! 



The Naked Truth 101 



YOUR BROTHER 

If he were your brother 

You'd go far 

And do much 

To cheat the gallows! 

If he were your brother, 
Your neighbor, you kin, 
Or your friend — 
Would you cry "Hang him"? 

If he were your brother, 
Your son, your father, 
Your husband, or lover, 
You would plead for his life ! 

If he were your brother, 
You would raise heaven 
And earth to save him 
From the gallows! 

He is 

Your brother!! 



102 The Naked Truth 



I WILL NOT FIGHT 

I will not fight 
To save for Wall street 
The exclusive privilege 
Of exploiting, degrading 
The people of America — 

For a flag, for markets, for words 

Like patriotism, prosperity, or 

To keep the Japanese or any other people out. 

There's room enough for the whole world of men. 

I will not fight 
To perpetuate slavery — 
But with a mighty battle 
To open the land of America 
To the dispossessed millions 
Count me in to the end. 



War Lines 



104 War Lines 



ARMAGEDDON 

This is no Armageddon. 
This is a squabble of thieves. 
The murderous hosts of Europe 
Have nothing to gain or lose. 
Esdraelon's plain will redden 
When the masters meet the slaves. 
This is no Armageddon. 

That will be Death against Life 
That will be Manhood's struggle 
To end the robber strife. 
This is a tradesman's war 
Powder and guns and provisions 
Watch how the prices soar. 
This is not Armageddon. 

This is the broker's gamble 

With interest at 80 per cent. 

A money lord's scramble. 

Hear the cash register jingle 

At every soul's descent 

And the pulse of the market tingle- 

This is Greed's game with Death. 

This is a newspaper war — 
Its pawns driven to slaughter 
And lured by the daily press. 
No one hates the German, 
No one hates the French, 
No one hates the English, 
Only the daily press. 



Armageddon 105 

This is no Armageddon 
This is the christians' bluff 
All the captain's praying 
That Greed may keep its clutch 
And stay the Armageddon 
Delay the real war 
Of Man against Money. 

This is no Armageddon 
This is no test of strength 
This is the feeding of flesh 
To death machines 
That rip and tear and mangle 
"The human form divine" 
"Made in God's image." 

This is for broken treaties 
That will avenge broken lives. 
Wait till the hosts of Darkness 
Face the powers of Light 
Then the world-struggle! 
And may Death alone win 
If Right fail for Might! 



106 War Lines 



WAR'S MASKS 

War masks itself in glittering pomp and tinsel, 
With blare of brass and pageantry of trampling 

troops 
Cheered by aimless women who love gold braid 
And smirk on empty-pated automatons 
That strut like dunghill roosters and swell 
With mindless vanity vacuously to obey. 
War's mask is this, but at its heart lies 
Cold, mechanical, calculating Profit. 

War lures with murder, blood, and pillage, 
With rape and loot and all that stirs the passing 
Human brute to primitive ferocity; 
Envisages with lust of gluttony 
To lure the jungle avatars of men. 
War's lure is this, but at its heart lies gold 
For bankers, bonds for financiers, and profit 
For crafty brokers of war munitions. 

War hypnotizes by sorceries of words 

And fatuous phrases. Nor Patriotism, the flag, 

My Country, Prosperity, Progress, nor a thousand 

Like noises would Profit budge an inch 

To serve — because Profit knows them for what 

They are, but empty sound to awe the mass 

To insane murder for Profit's profit. War 

Enchants the weak with mercantile palaver. 

War masks in red hot courage, in glorious 
Death for fatherland and home — lies infernal 1 
(Devised of church and press and school 
To pay their keep by wealth) that snare the weak 
And ignorant to hack and kill each other 



War's Masks 107 



And stand as targets for machine guns 
While Profit reaps fresh harvests 
And validates again its titles to land. 

War's public attitude is Balance of Power, 
Trade Supremacy, Markets of the World, 
National Integrity; its pith and purpose is 
To refasten the chains of industrial 
Slavery on toiling millions, to exploit 
Little tradesmen and petty merchants 
And hoard still vaster piles of wealth 
In never loosening grip of Greed. 

To break the wave of social discontent 
War masks in frothy horror and black fear; 
Dangles huge cruelties and crimson 
Carnivals of pain to fascinate the 
Sensual emotionalists and snare souls weak 
Of human courage aborn of thought 
And sympathy, sans manly daring 
To fight for Man instead of kings and profit. 



108 War Lines 



WAR WILL NOT CEASE 

Let warriors be reassured 
Their occupation is lasting — 
But men will not always 
Kill each other. 

There will be no peace 
Till the last lie 
Of religion and philosophy 
Has been uncovered. 

Let the fighters cease twaddle 
Of the enervation of peace. 
Greed will remain a worthy foe 
For many centuries. 

There will be no peace 
Till man is free 
Of all the superstitions 
Of church and state. 

Let the heroes be content. 
There are monsters and dragons 
Of unknown spheres to slay — 
When man has ceased to kill himself. 

There will be no peace 
For courageous men 
Till the last veil is torn 
From the visage of Reality. 



War Lines 109 



THE REAL WAR 

That ye strive for the real 
As ye battle for the false. 
That ye bleed for freedom 
As ye fight for chains. 

That ye dare for Man 
As ye die for God. 
That ye slay your foe 
As ye kill your kin. 

That men who think and feel 
Be as bold as the shallow. 
That sympathy and thought 
Rob us not of manhood. 



THE NEW WAR 

The new war will be 
For men instead of markets, 
For life instead of profit, 
For love instead of hate — 
To dethrone rulers and gain 
The earth and its fruit 
For the Many! 



110 War Lines 



A FLAGGERAL 

The fondest flag is only a rag — 
But a man is a soul! 

Tho it be of silk 

It is poverty's ilk 
That pays its toll — 

Men hack and kill 

At Capital's will 
Death take and give 
So a few can live 

On the blood and dure 

Of the poor. 
It's a rich man's flag 
And only a rag — 
But a human life is a soul! 

The silkiest flag is only a rag — 
But a man can feel! 
The scrawniest cat 
Or the skulkiest rat 
Can breathe and suffer, 
But a flag is tougher 
Than the heart of Greed 
Making war for profit! 

They wave the flag, a gaudy rag- 
They raise a shout 
And the dupes march out 
To murder each other 
At $13 a month! 

The proudest flag 
Is a senseless rag — 
But a man knows joy and pain! 



A Flaggeral HI 

A rag can't feel, 

But its wavers steal 
The land of the "foreign foe," 

While the men who fight, 

Give Greed its might, 
Get what for their pain and woe? 

Disemployed at home 

Blanket-stiffs they roam — 
Driven off the naked earth as bums 

In the name of a flag 

That's only a rag, 
But is fondled more 
Than human babes in the slums! 

Who honor the flag 

As a sacred rag 
Dishonor woman and man! 

Their guns to sell 

Turn earth to hell 
On human life they prey! 

And the red bar's stain 
Is the human flood 
The heart's own blood — 

The brand of Cain! 

O, a child's lost joy 
Or a broken toy, 

Of sanctity has more 

Than profit's flag of war! 



112 War Lines 



ALL THIS KILLING 

Cowardice lurks in killing 
Weakness dogs 
Fear skulks 
Behind it. 

Logically it is futile 
To kill — boyish, brutish 
Not manly. 

It may be unavoidable 
To kill— 

A mad dog or a mad king 
Or a mad financier 
Or a mad policeman — 
But weakness and fear 
Lurk in killing. 

It is hideous to kill 
And unnecessary. 
Nor health nor strength 
Nor beauty can ensue. 
Weakness and fear 
Are the net 
Products of killing. 

There are other ways 
To be passionate 
And courageous, 
To risk life and feel 
The shock and thrill 
Or high daring 
Than by killing people. 



War Lines 113 



THE LESSER EVIL 



War to abolish Poverty 
Is better than peace 
That maintains Privilege. 



PEACE AND WAR 

Profit takes heavier toll 

Of human life 

In peace than in war — 

Will drain the heart's blood 

Of more men, women, children 

Starve their bodies and minds, 

Vampirize their souls — 

Ruthlessly and needlessly slay, 

In America, 

To fatten dividends 

Of railroad, factory, and mine, 

More, far more than will die 

On the European battlefields! 



114 War Lines 



ITS SHAME 
This war 's a wanton hussies' bawdy game. 
Usury's murderous lust of gain — its aim 
No higher than a harlot's lust of gaud. 
Each power aloot — oblivious to shame! 



ITS STRUT 

War's fatuous strut — its hate and rage so crass, 
Gold braid, emotion, pompous death en masse- 

Is all a wolfish, strident, shrewish game, 
The soldier but an automatic ass. 



THE LIE 
The Moving Finger writes with crimson stain 
Its record red of every human gain 

In Christendom — the theologic lie! — 
That growth can only come thru pain. 



War Lines 115 



SLAY YOUR MASTERS 

Ye are taught to hate, 

Ye are drilled to kill — 

One Another! 

Ye are bidden: 

Servants obey your masters. 

But the nucleus stirs in the life cell, 
The prisoned plant bursts granite 
To reach the light, 
The hidden God that man is 
Awakes ! 

Above the rattle of falling chains 
Hear ye the voice of Manhood — 
Servants arise, 
And slay your masters! 

Hear ye the boldness, the trueness, 

the faith 
And the thunders 
Of awakened Men: 

"Kill only the foeman! 
Kill boldly, O yeomen, 
All who would exploit, 
Would rob, or deny — 
Would palaver and cheat 
By law and deceit 
Any child of its food, 
Any soul, any man or his mate 
Of whatever is earned 
In the sweat of the brow!" 



116 War Lines 



THE EUCHARIST 



Again the christians gather for the Host, 
The millions slay to please their Holy Ghost 

And make of Eucharist a real feast 
For God who smiles when murder riots most. 



IF WE MUST 

Since murderous war, invoked by tradesmen's 

greed, 
To battle hells the landless millions speed; 

If war must be the common lot — O men 
Awake! and battle for the common need! 



New Songs 



118 New Songs 



SONG OF THE PRINTING PRESS 

I am the Printing Press — Anarch of Christendom, 
Breeder of discontent, fomenter of strife, destroyer 
of hopes and delusions: 
I am the thunder and the flash bursting palls 

of sacred superstition — 
The earthquake sundering anointed forms, 
The wind that topples reverent customs, 
The flood that drowns creeds and churches — 
I am the sunlight in which men rear new temples, 
Gain new illusions, fresh hopes, larger ideals. 

I am the Printing Press — Dooming authority, 
Unseating gods and kings, plotting revolutions, 

stirring to rebellion, revealing to slaves the 

chains that bind them: 
I am the danger of a little knowledge that 

precedes more knowledge and ripens to 

wisdom: 
I am the pain and the ecstacy of quickened 

growth, the bitterness of knowing, the pang of 

disillusion, the dregs at the bottom of the cup: 
I am that which is clothing right with might. 

I am the Printing Press — Time's analyst, 
Sifting, dissecting, assorting, evading or hiding 

nothing; 
Searching the dark corners, dragging into sun- 
light the dust of centuries, the slime of lust, 
the mold of weakness, the debris of ignorance; 
Lending myself to all shams, shames and vil- 
lainies, to all graces and divinities: 



The Printing Press U9 

Culture and crudeness I blazon, faith and doubt 
unmask, hate and love mingle, pride and 
humility, prejudice and sympathy uncover — 

I reveal man to himself. 

I am the Printing Press — The silver thread 
That binds the human whole: 
I am that Messiah foretold by the prophets. 
Buddha and Jesus were my heralds: 
I am the resurrection and the life, the cross 

and the circle, regeneration and destruction; 
I am the trinity of pain, knowledge and growth; 
I am the power to roll the stone from the tomb 

of death and reveal life: 
I shall uncover the secret place of the Grail 

and cleanse all men 

To drink from the golden chalice. 

I am the Printing Press — The means and the end 
Of external progression — the journey out and 

the return. 
I shall marry the heart to the head of man — 
wed intellect and sympathy, care and art, 
purpose and genius, passion and reason, 
religion and logic, poetry and usefulness, 
morality and nature: 
I am wearing away the crudities and intensify- 
ing the realities — transmuting the primitive 
instincts to finer perceptions: 
I am fitting man for his new environment: 
I am the prophet of that time when the written 
word shall be obsolete — 

When men shall speak soul to soul. 



120 New Songs 



A PLEA FOR MAN 

I plead for Man — 
Against the Written Word: 
The state and the statute, 
Preamble and resolution, 
Theology and philosophy, 
The fixed belief and the static thought — 
Reason's fumbling clutch, logic's icy touch; 
Against the sorcery of syllables and 
The hypnotism of hyperbole. 
Against all the tomb's tentacles 
I plead for living men. 

I plead for Man — 

Against the guns and creeds of Greed 

And the black blindness 

Of orthodox and infidel 

To the law as unbroken as gravity 

That the only gain 

From the commerce of death machines 

Is hate and pain. 

Against the world's darkest hour 

Of the tradesman's triumph 

I plead for human beings. 

I plead for Man — 
Against hell's heresy 
That growth and joy and wisdom 
Must come thru suffering, 
That good lies in the bitterness of strife 
And grief is integral in life; 
That sweets grow in sour and purity in filth 
Or anything of worth accrue to one 
By forcing misery on another. 



A Plea for Man 121 

Against the exploiter's creeds of Death and 

Destruction 
I plead for human life. 

I plead for Man — 
Against God 

And all his plutocrats and prophets 
And their religions to bind vassals, 
Their morals to promote mediocrity, 
Their dogma of Rights 
To maintain "mine and thine" 
Against the human need 
And the heart's demand. 
Against the glory of God and the gluttony of 

Greed 
I plead for Man! 



122 New Songs 



SONG OF THE RAILWAY CROSSING 

Hear the bells at the railway crossing. 

Ding dong, they sound, 

If the wind is right, 

Above the roar of the hastening train 

Of electric cars 

Whirling a hundred passengers 

From the city to their homes. 

It's a dangerous crossing. 
The smooth auto road 
Bisects it diagonally. 
Therefore the warning bells — 
Ding dong, they sound, 
When the wind is right. 

A dozen people a year 

Were killed here. 

That's why the bells were installed— 

Cunning electric automatic bells. 

Now the death record 

Is reduced to six. 

Hear the bells 

At the dangerous crossing. 

Ding dong, they sound, 

Sometimes, 

Loud and clear above the wind 

And the rushing trains. 

Glorious bells! 
Six lives a year 
They save — 
And six are killed. 



The Railway Crossing 123 

Four interurban electric tracks 
Cross the county road here. 
The trolley cars pound along 
At thirty miles an hour, 
The autos glide at twenty-five. 

Last night in the wind and rain 
There was a crash! 
Only one was killed 
And one crippled. 

Whose life went out? 
Not yours or mine, 
Anyone we know? 
A. B. Smith. 
Never heard of him. 
Read the next item. 

What are the bells saying? 

Ding dong, they talk. 

This is their song: 

"Cheap skates are we. 

We cost a hundred dollars 

And save the railroad 

And the county the expense 

Of obviating a dangerous grade crossing." 

"Cheap bells are we, 

As cheap as human life. 

We save dividends for the company 

And every taxpayer 

Fifty cents." 

Ding dong, ring the bells 
At the dangerous crossing. 
One was killed 
And one crippled 
Last night. 



124 New Songs 

Not you or me — 
Only some stranger. 

Taxes are high 

And life is cheap. 

Ding dong, ring the bells. 

Dividends are more than life 

And taxes than a cripple! 

When the life 

Or the limb 

Is not 

Yours or mine. 

All the dividends of the world 

Were not worth my life, 

Or yours. 

But the other fellow's — 

Ding dong, ring the cheap bells. 



New Songs 125 



THAT LOVE BE BOLD 

That Love should be as bold as Hate — 
Audacious, fearless 
For light and joy and freedom, 
As Hate is for darkness and pain; 

That Love should dare to seize and hold its own, 

For what is all the world's attainment 
If pain with growth and knowledge 
Keep the pace? 
While crime and hunger stalk 
What profit all the piety and grace? 

That Kindness be as strong as Cruelty — 
To mold the world 
And have its heart's desire; 
To kill the thought or thing — 
Remove whatever bar its way! 

For what are all the dreams and ideals 
If love be meek? 
If kindness, thought, and care 
Gain only — patience! 
The dream is but a snare if Love be weak. 

That Sympathy should outrun Prejudice 
And have its way on earth! 
Nor wait the toilsome centuries' 
Blind and groping growth. 
That Sympathy be quick, courageous, true! 



126 New Songs 



A MAN BELIEF 

I believe in Man — 

In men, women, and children; 

In their welfare, 

Their freedom from exploitation, 

Their opportunity to grow — 

Every human being's chance 

Freely to develop 

His own Individuality 

Without hindrance 

From Greed. 

I believe in Man — 

In living, breathing human beings 

The "least" or the "worst" 

Of which 

Is more precious 

Than all the minted gold, 

Than any state or government, 

Or any institution or church 

Or property 

The sun ever shone on. 

I believe in Man — 

Every man and every woman 

And every child, 

The raggedest of whom 

Is more to be considered 

Than all the railroads 

And corporations 

And temples and mansions 

And riches 

In the whole wide world! 



A Man Belief 127 



I believe in Man — 

Whose Present Hour 

And chance to live a full life 

Now and Here 

Is more than all the Gods 

And theologies — 

More than all the dreams 

Of superman 

Than all the means and methods 

Of Utopia! 



128 New Songs 



SONG OF THE HANGMAN 

I am the hangman — 
Paid to strangle boys, men, women — 
Whoever is caught in the snarled meshes 
Of the Big Net 

Threaded of the vengeful penal code, 
Woven by detectives, judges, and lawyers 
On the warp of Poverty. 

I am the hangman — 
Hired by the Ladies and Gentlemen 
Of wealth, piety, position, and culture 
To suffocate their brothers and sisters — 
Because ten thousand years ago 
Marauding herders imposed "the law" 
On conquered peasants. 

I am the hangman — 
Who throttles the victims of the Net 
In an obscure corner of a 
Gloomy room in the state prison 
Where the moans and curses 
Will be hushed 
From the delicate ears 
Of wives and mothers. 

But they hear and feel me! 
Ill-fed mothers embrace me; 
Their unborn babes are mine 
When chance calls; 
In the womb I brand them. 
Vain is your hiding of me — 
All the fearsome and weak are mine, 
Whose passions outrun their mentalities, 



Song of the Hangman 129 

Whose spleens are more developed 
Than their brains! 

For I am the lethal god — 
Whose face is hidden in 
Clouds of red passion. I am 
The god of the abnormal. 
I obsess the weak of will 
And possess the perverted. 
Into every open ear I whisper 
"Murder!" I am 

The color red that turns to black — 
And while I live 
No soul evades me! 

I am the public hangman — 
Focus of the world's cruelty, 
Cumulous of its hate, 
Sum-total of its fear and ignorance. 
My days and ways and dreams 
Are of blood. 

I am he who kills, kills, kills — 
For a monthly wage 
Paid by the State. 

I am the hangman — 
Mercenary descendant, 
Of old Judge Lynch, 

Whose ways were quick, crude, merciful — 
And I, more often than he did, 
Hang the wrong man. 
My ways are refined. I am 
Cold and mechanical — the paid ghoul 
With critical eye for the long tortures 
Of those who wait in the Death Cell. 

I am the State's hangman — 
The conscience of every voter, 



130 New Songs 

His malice and savagery. 
And I am bolder than he, for 
I do what he dare not. 
My blood lust is his — 
My courage is my own. 

I am the hangman — 
The State's hired butcher of men. 
I am the avatar 

From dungeons of the Inquisition, 
And ye are the mob that gloated. 
Long live the lust of blood! 
When my trade is gone 
Men will cease to kill each other. 

I am the hangman — 
Who does the work the judge 
Orders but has not the "sand" 
To perform. 

I am the sign of the incapacity 
Of modern people to treat 
The crime of murder intelligently. 
I am the ignorance and stupidity 
Of the Christian mob. 



New Songs 131 



THE DOCTRINE OF RIGHTS 

The Doctrine of Rights — 

Dogma of intolerable wrongs — 

Wrongs to little children, to nursing mothers, 

to youth of immaturity, to helpless age — 
The food stolen from their mouths 
And heaped in gluttonous piles around a few 

greed-blinded inhuman beings — 
Billionaires who riot in luxury while millions 

drudge and pinch and go without — 
Wrongs that Men, real men, courageous men 

with the natural dignity of a Hottentot, the 

human sympathy of an Apache, the nascent 

manhood of a wolf or porcupine would never 

tolerate — 
Babes starving by the thousand 
Children's lives ground out in mine and mill 
Women on the street corners offering their bodies 

for bread — 
And we haggle over Rights! 

Under the dogma of Rights — 

The greatest wrongs the world has ever known! 

No one has a Right to anything 

While a child lacks food. 

It is avarice and envy 

That demand their Rights. 

The brave take and leave. 

The Doctrine of Rights is a quibble — 

A dogma of caste 

Artificially dividing 

An invertebrate people 

Who argue and pass resolutions 



132 New Songs 

While their weaker ones starve 

And broken human lives 

Litter every pathway — 

In a land of Plenty, in a land of Plenty, in a land 

of Plenty! 
In a land where all the necessities and luxuries 

of life 
Are so abundant they choke the warehouses 
And the surplus is destroyed. 

The state's Rights 
The church's Rights 
The landlord's Rights 
The army's Rights 
The prison keepers' Rights 
The hangman's Rights 
The millionaire's Rights 
The exploiters' Rights 
The bankers' Rights 
The money lenders' Rights 
The brokers' Rights 
The merchants' Rights 
The employers' Rights 
The brothel keepers' Rights 
The prostitutes' Rights 
The wage earners' Rights 
The people's Rights 
The paupers' Rights — 

Inalienable Rights! 

Up and down the christian earth men — 

Are we Men? — 

Prescribing, discovering, balancing, maintaining, 

defining, defending, enacting 
Our Rights! 

Bench and bar ransack tombs and tomes 
For definitions and precedents 



The Doctrine of Rights 133 

To establish Rights! 

While a million shop girls sell their bodies for 
ribbons and bread — 

(Ribbons count more 
Than bread 
With the woman 
I would love)— 

And bread and ribbons so plenty 

That the markets are glutted — 

While men — 

Men? 

Haggle over their Rights! 

Prisons, gallows, penal codes, death machines — 

Ten hundred thousand 

Toiling, slaving, sweating 

Night and day — dying! — 

In the munition hells 

To make fiendish contrivances by which living 

beings are mutilated and murdered — 
To establish and maintain Rights! 
Whose Rights?— 
Of the cunning, the stronger, the cruel, the 

heartless; 
To rob, cheat, kill, debauch, and exploit 
The weaker and the trusting. 

All up and down 

The christianized parts of earth 

Spies and detectives 

Are peeping thru keyholes 

Of cabinets and bedchambers 

To uphold Rights! 

And children are dying in the streets 

And men are entombed in mines 

Youth poisoned and life blackened 



134 New Songs 

In sweatshops — 

While we haggle over Rights! 

The Doctrine of Rights 

Is hell's dogma of servant and master. 

Manhood will cast it out 

And put decency, courage, kindness — Love! 

A bold defiant daring love 

In its place. 

O have done with the quibbling! 

The world needs Men — 

The starving children need Men 

To feed them 

Now! 



Personal Privilege 



136 Personal Privilege 



PERSONAL PRIVILEGE 

I will love all men 
I will hate no man 
But I will toady 
To no man's 
Superstitions — 

To no man's concept 
Of an alien God 
Outside, over, beyond 
Himself 
And myself — 

Of a God 

Who does not speak 
In every human voice 
And look thru 
Every human eye. 

I will honor all men 
I will judge no man 
But I will not 
Keep silence 
At the things men do. 

I will oppose 
I will denounce 
The deceits 
And the cruelties 
Of any man. 

I will love all men 
But not their crimes. 
I will accept all men 
Without question 
But not their delusions. 



Personal Privilege 137 

Some men do this 
Some that. 
Whether this or that 
I am little interested 
Unless it hinders me 
Or others. 

Another's motive 
I cannot penetrate. 
My own are mixed 
And obscured 
By innumerable things 
That urge and limit. 

1 will accuse no soul 

But I will appraise 

All conduct that trenches 

On the welfare of another. 

I will separate 

The doer from the deed. 

I am anxious to please 

My friends. 

I am solicitous 

For the goodwill 

Of those who love Men — 

But I will not 

Bow to their idols. 



138 Personal Privilege 



A FRIEND OF MINE 

W. F. G. 

He sells goods, 

Is a merchant of wares — 

Yet I love him. 

He sells things that people need, 

Yet I respect him! 

He doesn't paint pictures 
Or write poems 
Or deal in "culture" 
While children starve 
And girls go to the streets. 

He only sells goods 
That people need 
And sells 'em honestly 
And has never yet 
Sold himself. 

What artist, lawyer 

Poet, writer 

Can say as much for himself 

Truthfully—that he has 

Never sold himself for Gain? 

That he has never 

Lowered his ideal 

For dollars? 

A few — possibly — possibly! 

Be truthful to yourself. 

He sells goods — 
But not himself. 



Personal Privilege 139 



DIVERGENCE 

Does life 

Present itself to you 

As a personal equation — 



A matter of getting 
Some personal material 
Advantage 

Regardless 

Of broken lives 

And starving children? 

Then I am not 
With you. Our 
Paths widely diverge. 



140 Personal Privilege 



FAY 

Can a picture 
Be better than it looks? 
Yes, if a human portrait. 
There's Fay- 
As bad as any of us 
And as good — 
But looking, 
Staid, dignified, prominent! 

No one could be 
So eminently 
Distinguished and correct 
As he — looks — 

Fay— 

With the heart of an anarchist 
The soul of an I.W.W. 
The brand of the outlaw 

Christ! 

A traitor to his 

Smug and respectable 

Appearance. 

Why! 

He gives comfort and cash 
To law breakers, 
Associates with agitators — 

He, who looks 
Like a Pillar of Society 
Friendly with 
Convicted felons — 



Fay 141 



And with some of us 
Not convicted — yet. 
Even with the disturbers 
Of Existing Conditions 

The eminently 

Respectable 

Dignified — Fay — 

A traitor to his Class A. 

He is fey 

To the world of things 

As they are 

And Fay 

To us who know him. 



142 Personal Privilege 



WHY I STAY 

There's a soft green island 
In the South Sea 
And a dark-eyed woman 
Who beckons to me. 
Yet I stay. 

There's a hungry child 

In California 

An infant soul 

Whose body 

Lacks food and shelter. 

There's a starving maid 
In California, 
A girl whose hunger 
For bread or ribbons 
Is denied. 

There's an exploited mother 
In California 
Whose choice is 
Between the sweat shop, 
Starvation or harlotry. 

There's a jobless man 

In California 

Tramping over Idle Acres 

Moving on — begging — stealing- 

The sheriff's irons behind him. 

There's a broken life 

In California 

A discouraged hopeless being 

A blood brother of mine — 

And a fighting chance 



Why I Stay 143 

To succor him — 

A bare chance 

Immediately 

To Open the Earth 

And free him. 

Not one only 

Tho one were enough 

For a man — 

But a hundred thousand — 

So I stay and strive in California. 

There's a green isle near Fiji 

In the tropical sea 

And a dark-eyed woman 

Beckons to me, 

Yet I stay in California. 



144 Personal Privilege 



NOW 

This is the age of romance 
Not yesterday 
Nor tomorrow. 

This is the day 
For great daring 
And wonderful deeds. 

This is the hour 
To slay the dragon 
Of Greed. 

This is the time 
Of high emprise 
We are the world's heroes. 

This is the age of romance 
When Manhood shall 
Assault Omnipotence! 



Personal Privilege 145 



AT THE ROSSLYN HOTEL 

One arose and said 
He had sacrificed more 
For Single Tax than I had. 

He was right. 

I haven't sacrificed anything 

For Single Tax. 

The vision of Henry George 

Owes me nothing. 

I am its debtor 

For the greatest hours of my life. 



Facets of Truth 



148 Facets of Truth 



THE SILVER THREAD 

There are in every society a number of people 
who care. 

For these life is not bounded by their material 
satisfactions. They are not content to mind their 
own business and let the word wag along as it 
will. For it doesn't wag that way. It has no 
will. It wags as Rockefeller and the steel trust 
will. And that spells a shameful and unnecessary 
poverty — hunger, prostitution, starvation wages, 
child slavery, insanity, suicide, murder for profit, 
and millions disemployed. 

Reason enough why those who care should not 
be content to sit with hands folded in their own 
houses. 

Consciously or unconsciously these sense the 
invisible silver thread that runs from heart to 
heart and binds the human mass into a unity from 
which no unit can escape. 

This silver thread is not known or sensed by 
those whose attention is fixed on externalities, 
and they marvel when "unmerited" blows fall; 
nevertheless it is the most real thing in the world, 
and whoever does not reckon with it will find his 
steering wrong. 

The silver thread by which the tortures of a 
Danbury hatter touch the life of a Pasadena mil- 
lionaire is not mere trope of speech or poetic 
metaphor. It is more real and lasting and unes- 
capable than rent, interest, and land values. 

But only those who care sense it. 



Facets of Truth 149 



HUMAN NATURE PERCENTAGES 

Gather a thousand human beings anywhere. 

Show them the possibility of realizing immedi- 
ately a sane, decent, kindly system of social 
life 

Eighty per cent will enlist to accomplish it. 

Gather a thousand human beings anywhere. 
Show them a strange new fiscal device for the 

alleviation of poverty an inch a year. 
Ten per cent will eagerly embrace it and try 

to force it on the rest. 

Gather a thousand human beings anywhere. 
Show them an Ideal that calls for heroism — 

and a Self Interest easily reached. 
Ninety per cent of them will choose the ideal. 



150 Facets of Truth 



STILL WAITING FOR HEAVEN 

Beware the medieval concept of Heaven! It 
lingers in the consciousness of those who think 
themselves most liberal, most radical, unortho- 
dox, infidel. Many who fancy themselves free 
bold atheists still believe in Heaven. 

They have disowned the word, denied the ma- 
terial mansions in the skies, repudiated an after- 
death state of perfect bliss — still they are thrall 
to the essentiality of the material concept of 
Heaven, which denies the reality of Here and 
Now and relegates everything to the future. 

Heaven is a habit of thought, a habit of dwell- 
ing only or mainly in the future. It is the idea 
that happiness can only be attained after awhile, 
that the ideal is only possible for the future; 
that here and now we must suffer in this vale of 
tears, but after awhile we will reach socialism, 
or anarchism, or singletax — then our children or 
their children will inhabit a decent world and 
begin truly to develop. 

It admirably pleases the needs of our masters 
and exploiters, who are no longer alarmed that 
we repudiate the word "heaven." They grant us 
that "freedom," seeing that the Heaven habit of 
thought abides with us and we go on as ever 
planning and educating always, always for the 
future — never for Now! 



Facets of Truth 151 



HUMAN NATURE 

Human nature is full of meanness and pettiness 
— on its surface. The tongue lies, our interests 
lead us to deceit, fear keeps us chained to the 
superficial, the strife against poverty engenders 
hate and envy — the shadow or the reality of need 
or hunger saps our frankness and courage, re- 
duces us all to the status of sneak thieves and 
detectives. 

This is the surface of life. 

Underneath it lies the heart, dormant usually, 
or pumping only in a mechanical way. Rouse it, 
interest it, excite it to consciousness and domin- 
ance, and you will find beneath every hypocrite, 
liar, and coward (which we all are) — 

A Man or a Woman true and dependable at the 
center. 

Human nature is cramped, distorted, perverted 
— first and chiefly by the economic and industrial 
infamies — but its Heart is true. 



152 Facets of Truth 



THE SOURCE OF POWER 

The seat of power is the Heart. 

The head invokes it, the hands execute it — but 
power resides in the Heart. 

Mentality guides, shapes, molds it (more or 
less) — but the source of power is the heart. 

This is not gush or sentimentality, but physi- 
ologic fact. 

The heart supplies all motor power — automatic- 
ally as a rule, unconsciously, aimlessly. 

The brain analyzes, relates, ponders, plans — 
but without the Heart it has not power to stir 
a leaf. 

In all life the Heart is the reservoir of power, 
and whoever would accomplish anything must 
invoke it. 

We quicken the nerve ganglia of the spleen, 
the liver, the solar plexus, and other centers — 
and get emotions of hate, envy, deceit, sensuality, 
as these centers draw undue blood from the Heart. 

But quicken the Heart of man, reach directly 
the Source of Power, and a great expansion of 
force flows (we call it love or sympathy) that 
dominates, dares, and performs! 



Facets of Truth 153 



PERSONAL SALVATION 

Personal Salvation is the great delusion. The 
world is not built that way. Individualism is 
only intellectual and at no time is it more than 
half the truth. The other half is, that the deeper 
part of every human is indissolubly attached to 
the human mass and responsive to every throb 
of pain or joy that thrills the mass. No one can 
fall off the earth or rise above it. While the mass 
is enslaved no one is free. While the mass is 
degraded no one can be much else. 



IDEALS 

The only man who lives up to his ideals is the 
man who has none. 

Ideals are of thought which is fluidic, and 
wherever thought is active, ideals keep a measur- 
able pace in advance of conduct. When conduct 
catches up with ideals, thought has ceased to flow, 
"mental stability" ensues, self-complacency and 
self-righteousness obtain. 



154 Facets of Truth 



MARTYRDOM AND SACRIFICE 

Self-sacrifice and martyrdom are childish con- 
cepts — when not worse. 

Men seek ever their own good — what is most 
congenial to themselves, to whatever element of 
self is then uppermost. 

Martyrdom and self-sacrifice are — cant. 

No one sacrifices himself — he "sacrifices" one 
part of himself to another part. He relinquishes, 
rejects, that which he conceives to be the lesser 
in order to obtain what appears to him to be the 
greater — having learned that he cannot have both. 

Our acts are for self, for the gain of self, be the 
gain of gold, pride, love personal or impersonal. 

Forever we search for the more desirable — to 
Us — for the thrills, surges, feelings, exaltations 
(or degradations) peculiar to ourselves. 

How blindly we grope! — for the excitations of 
alcohol, the soothings of peace, or the ecstacies of 
the heretic burned at the stake! 

I want that, and only that, which it will give 
me the greatest satisfaction to obtain. 

What is gain for one man appears as dross to 
another. 

Fear, prejudice, habit, keep many from finding 
their best gain. Ignorance keeps all from their 
best. But that which each seeks is ever the best 
that each knows and feels at the time. 

Some find their best in seizing, robbing, ex- 
ploiting — or in ease and yielding. Some find 
theirs in giving and in doing. But each seeks 
always his own best, and martyrdom and self- 
sacrifice are — cant. 



Facets of Truth 155 



OODLES OF KNOWLEDGE 

If socialism, anarchism, or singletax means a 
kinder and decenter world — 

We are ready for it Now! 

All our economic education pertains only to 
life in the christian jungle — and doesn't ease it or 
help it. If singletax, socialism, or anarchism 
means to perpetuate this jungle existence, then 
they are all negligible. 

If they mean the end of robbery and exploita- 
tion, if any one of them will shear the state of its 
power to bestow privileges that despoil — 

Then we are ready for it Now, without another 
moment's education or preparation. 

All that lacks is the Power. 

"Knowledge is power" — not at all. Intellect is 
only the perceiver of things, the knower, the direc- 
tor. Power is one thing, quite another is know- 
ledge. 

Already we have knowledge — mountains of it, 
books, tomes, libraries of ancient and modern 
knowledge. Life is cluttered with knowledge — 
the heart is cloyed with it — we have shrivelled to 
pusillanimity beneath the heavy load of our 
knowledge — most of which is self-contradictory 
and all of it negligible while a million human 
beings are jobless! 

Knowledge has robbed us of Power. 



156 Facets of Truth 



THE LINE OF CLEAVAGE 

Those who Care and those who don't — this is 
the line of cleavage in human society. It does not 
run between exploiter and exploited, the robber 
and the robbed: those are later accidents of en- 
vironment and opportunity and circumstances. 
The still earlier "accident" — so it must appear to 
our comprehension — that we have to deal with is 
the "accident" of birth which gave this man a 
quickened heart and this man a dull one — this 
man a heart responsive and this man a heart 
obtuse. 

Some men Care and some men don't — this is 
the line of cleavage. It does not parallel any of 
the artificial lines that superficially separate so- 
ciety into classes. It is not between the masses 
and the classes, not between labor and capital 
nor between worker and parasite; it is not between 
proletariat, bourgeois, and tinsel aristocrat, nor 
between the educated and the ignorant. 

The true line of cleavage runs perpendicular 
thru all the classes — even thru radicalism itself — 
and divides the world into those who Care and 
those who don't. 



Facets of Truth 157 



NOT THE WORST THING 

War is not the worst thing in the world. 

It is not so evil and hideous a thing as the 
gallows or the electric chair. 

The war passion is fine — that men will leave all 
that is dear to them to go off and face death for 
an. ideal, however mistaken. Slavish peace is 
worse than war, and infinitely worse are the de- 
gradation's of disemployment. 

War at worst is ignorance — that men should 
make an ideal of their slaveries. 

The sorrow of the war is, not the spirit of 
idealism that drives the millions to it, but that 
the millions should mistake their chains for 
"something better" and make an ideal of their 
slaveries. 

The shame of the war is — the Profit wrung 
from it. 



158 Facets of Truth 



THE HEART LEADS 

The heart leads, not the head. Reason is to 
sift truth from its clinging fancies and crass ma- 
terial concepts, mind is to detect error, to corre- 
late and to explain, but the finding of truth and 
peace or whatever is of real worth is the function 
of the heart. It leads! And it leads not to de- 
spair, not to distrust of Infinity or carping at its 
seeming cruelties, but to a wider sphere of con- 
sciousness with profounder depths of feeling and 
loftier intellectual reaches, where the antinomies 
and perplexities of external life are softened 
gradually till they disappear — where the sharp 
blacks and whites merge into grayness and the 
garish midday colors are lost in azure mists thru 
which rise those "half-glimpsed battlements of 
eternity" — 

"Not where the wheeling systems darken, 
And our benumbed conceiving soars! 
The drift of pinions, would we hearken, 
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors." 



Facets of Truth 159 



THE WORLD IS AWAKE 

The world is awake as never before. 
Its heart is aflame with daring. 
Mankind is ready for wonderful changes. 
It is the time for the fruition of dreams! 

Huge things are going on — 

Robberies and exploitations that stagger the 

imagination, 
A world holocaust of senseless murder, 
Half of human energy making death machines, 
Privilege reaping monstrous streams of wealth 
That flow from the life blood of countless 

children, women, and men — 
Human life crushed into Profit! 

The world is awake — Only for blood, lust, and 

death? 
Wait! You will see. Great things are coming — 

Quickly! 
The heart of the world is aflame. 
It is the hour for the fruition of dreams! 



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